Mlaatr: Maverick Hunter X
by drewmaster
Summary: Life is full of unexpected challenges, and we all tend to change just a little with each new one. However, seldom are we met with a challenge that is so unusual, that it changes the foundations of our beliefs...or at least calls them into question.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own My Life as a Teenage Robot. I do not own the Megaman series. I also do not own any of either stories official characters. However, any characters that appear in this story that are not in either series are mine.**

**I've finally decided it's time to repost this story. I apologize to any of the fans of this story that I've disappointed.**

**This is the sequel to my story "****Frail Humanity****." Yes, it is a crossover. If you do not read Frail Humanity first, chances are, you won't understand this one.**

**I hope you enjoy this one, and please give me any constructive criticism you can.

* * *

**

A young girl, age 17. She was an average girl that didn't stand out very much. She had a few good friends, both loving parents living with her, well above average grades in school, and a bright future ahead of her as far as anyone could predict.

She had those things, but not anymore. After losing her parents, she became extremely miserable. It was later that she found out that she had also lost one of her friends. This only made matters worse. She had no choice but to live in an orphanage, and from that point on, her grades dropped sharply. She felt as though her life was utterly ruined.

She thought about these things as she walked towards the edge of the roof of a fourteen story building. It was after 3am, so no one else was aware of her location or what she was up to. This particular neighborhood was usually quiet and dark around this time. There was just enough light present so she could see where she was going.

She finally reached the edge of the roof and looked straight down. The cold winter weather would make almost anyone else retreat to their homes, but she barely noticed the freezing temperature of twenty six degrees Fahrenheit. The harsh weather was the least of her worries.

Realizing that she was completely calm at that moment despite her situation, she thought she was probably going mad. It was only when she had trouble moving her fingers and toes easily, that she realized how cold it must be.

Staring at her right hand, she smiled and said "The blood in my hands and feet must be turning into slush. I have been out here for about half an hour in my pajamas after all. Mom…dad…I'll see you soon."

She closed her eyes, took one step back, and then leaped forward with all of her might plummeting towards the street below. Before she decided to close her eyes, she was completely unaware of the police car driving along that street. The lights were flashing at that moment, so when she landed on the top of the car, she also broke the lights. The officer in the car was completely unprepared for the sudden impact and bright almost blinding flash of light.

Instinctively, he stopped the car and turned on his flash light. He turned it to his right and noticed that there was a large dent in the roof of the passengers' side.

"What the hell just hit me? That's blood leaking from…oh shit!" the officer said

He hurried out of his car as quickly as he possibly could and ran around to the other side of the car. He shined his light on the girl then checked to see if she was still alive.

"Dammit! Unfortunately, she's not," he said.

As he ran towards the car phone to contact the hospital, lights from people's houses and apartments turned on one after the other. The people wanted to see what was going on. When they realized what had happened, several people came running out of their homes to see if they could help.

* * *

Brad watched as Jenny balled up a newspaper violently and threw it into the trash.

"What was that for?" Brad asked.

"That's the fifth suicide in Tremorton this month," Jenny yelled angrily.

"Who was it this time?" one of the many now concerned students in the cafeteria asked.

"It was…Lisa Minch," Jenny replied in a tone that made her sound if she was on the verge of crying.

"You gotta be kidding me. Not Lisa," a male student said.

"I don't blame her though. There wasn't much left for her. I'm not exactly supporting her decision. I'm just saying that I would've probably done the same thing," another male student said.

"Nobody's mad at what you said man. The pitiful situation that we're in right now is what we're really angry about," Brad said.

"It's not uncommon for someone to commit suicide after the death of their loved ones, but it's becoming even more uncommon considering that Earth's population has dropped by thirteen percent," one of the teachers sitting a few tables away said.

"It's too much for me to try to keep up with. There's no system set up to alert me when someone is about to kill themselves, and even if there was one, I still couldn't prevent every suicide, especially when the current suicide rate is five times the current murder rate," Jenny said.

"It's not just here in America. It's a worldwide problem," the teacher said before leaving his table to dispose of his trash.

"Listen Jenny, I know you feel greatly responsible for all of this, but there's not much that you or anybody else can do about it right now. We just have to do whatever we can until things return to normal," Brit said.

"It's been a long time since you've called me Jenny. Not only that, that's one of the nicest things you've said to me…ever," Jenny said.

"I don't know why, but I can't bring myself to hate you anymore. I still don't really like you after what you did to me that day, but it's not on the level of hate anymore. I don't have a problem with making people feel like they're on the bottom, but I didn't realize I was partly responsible for driving you to suicide. Suicide is something I just don't approve of," Brit explained.

"It could be said that you were greatly responsible for pushing me that far, but I'm in no way in the mood for trying to argue the point. I know I shouldn't expect that much kindness from you in the future, but I do thank you for trying to cheer me up that much," Jenny said.

"As for calling you Jenny for the first time in a year and a half, I'm finally convinced that you at least deserve that much respect. You did decide to continue risking your life for us even after all the horrible things we've done and said about you. When I say we, I mean the entire human race, not Tiff and I. Just don't let my brief moment of kindness to go to your head," Brit said.

"I understand perfectly. I expect no less from one of the Krust Cousins," Jenny said.

"Indeed," Brit said as she resumed drinking her tea.

A few moments later, a faint beeping noise was heard originating from inside Jenny's head.

"What kind of emergency is it this time?" Brad asked.

Jenny stood up and looked around in several directions.

"Are your sensors malfunctioning or something?" Tiff asked.

"I don't know. I can't pin point it…whatever it is," Jenny answered.

"Is it a bad guy? I hope not. We can't afford to deal with one right now," a nervous female student said.

"I said I don't know. I seriously don't think my sensors are malfunctioning. It doesn't seem to be alive, whatever it is. Wait here. I'll go check the sky. That's where the strongest concentration is coming from," Jenny said before she ran out of the cafeteria and took off into the air.

Jenny flew around in several directions for about eight minutes trying to locate the source of the disturbance when suddenly; her sensors stopped detecting it altogether.

"_What? What the hell was that? Now it's gone, completely vanished. It didn't seem particularly dangerous. I think I should tell mom_," Jenny thought to herself.

She activated her communicator and said "Mom. Mom. Are you there? Great; she must be shopping again."

Jenny returned to the cafeteria to explain what had happened to the very curious students and staff.

"So, did you find out what it was?" a teacher asked.

"No. I wish I could tell you what it was, but I can't. It was probably the most bizarre thing I've ever sensed before, but it didn't seem dangerous. My sensors might be malfunctioning. I tried to contact mom, but she's most likely not at home right now," Jenny explained with a still bewildered expression on her face.

"What is the closest thing to that that you've sensed in the past?" Jason asked.

Jenny wanted to say something horrible to him. For her, it was a "How dare you speak to me," type of moment, but she only thought it instead of saying it.

"The closest...the closest thing to it would have to be this other disturbance that I sensed four years ago. It had happened so far away from here, that by the time my sensors detected it, the energy waves had unraveled to the point where it was impossible for me or mom to figure out what is was," Jenny explained in a somewhat irritated tone.

"How far away from here exactly?" Brit asked.

"We were never able to tell exactly how far away, but our closest estimate was about four hundred thousand light years from here, believe it or not," Jenny explained.

"Four hundred thousand light years, huh? How far away is a light year again?" Brad asked.

"You should really pay more attention in class Bradley. I can't think of the exact number of miles, but a light year is when you travel at one hundred eighty six thousand two hundred eighty three miles per second for an entire year. Now multiply that by four hundred thousand and try to visualize that distance," Brit explained.

"That's really, really far away from here. I'm having a lot of trouble visualizing it," Brad said.

"Of course you are. Human brains aren't really wired to visualize that kind of distance. I didn't really expect you to successfully visualize it because I can't do it either. I'm sure Jenny already realizes this, but if the wave's maximum speed was the speed of light, then that means that it took four hundred thousand years to get all the way over here. So, when they studied it, it was like looking far into the past. Believe it or not, fashion isn't the only thing I'm interested in. Astronomy happens to be quite fascinating to me. I don't plan on making a career out of studying it though," Brit explained.

"Yeah, that was just the problem. Whatever happened, it happened too long ago for us to figure out what it was," Jenny said.

"That's pretty wild. Wait, how far away was this disturbance?" Brad asked.

"I'm still trying to figure that out. It's really confusing to say the least. Don't let it worry you too much. Whatever it was, it's completely gone now. I don't sense it at all. And, it could just be that my sensors are screwed up somehow," Jenny said.


	2. Chapter 2

Ms. Wakeman returned home for the day around the same time that Jenny did. The first thing she did was make her way into her computer room, as she does so often. She noticed that Jenny had several cables attached to the back of her head and that she was also typing on the keyboard while staring at the screen.

"What's this all about? I rarely see you using my computer," Ms. Wakeman said.

"You should really come and see this mom. My sensors detected something really strange earlier today, so I'm using your computer to try and figure out what it was," Jenny explained while her mother made her way over to the computer.

Ms. Wakeman spent a few minutes reading the information on the screen. To normal humans, the information on the screen would appear as nothing but gibberish and random numbers, but since Ms. Wakeman was anything but normal, she was able to read and interpret most of it with ease.

"The information is inconclusive, or at least, that's the way it seems. It kind of reminds me of what you sensed four years ago, but it is quite different. How far away did this phenomenon take place?" Ms. Wakeman asked.

"I'm still trying to figure that out as well, but I think it happened less than a light year away. If that's true, then it happened recently," Jenny replied.

"Have you finished downloading all of the information you recorded onto the hard drive?" Ms. Wakeman asked.

"That was the second thing I did, right after running a diagnostic on my sensors. I thought they might be messed up, but I see now they're perfectly fine," Jenny replied.

"As utterly outrageous as this information seems, I was about to run that diagnostic myself, but I see you already did. You did the right thing. Wait...stop scrolling…this part of the information right here is what's bothering me," Ms. Wakeman said as she pointed to the bottom left corner of the screen.

"That part confuses me too. It's like the rest of the data describes some large painting for example, but that part seems to be describing a large spot of the painting that hasn't been painted in yet," Jenny explained.

"A painting? Yes, I guess you can describe it that way. That's actually a pretty good analysis. I'll definitely have to study this further," Ms. Wakeman said.

Jenny pulled the cables out and closed the lid on the back of her head.

She stood up and said "You can work on that if you want to. I have homework to do."

"By the way, I heard about that girl Lisa," Ms. Wakeman said as she started typing on the keyboard.

"I really wish you didn't mention that. I've already got enough on my mind as it is. I've been thinking about death a little too much in the past few months," Jenny said irritated.

"Five months and about ten days to be more precise. Remember, I volunteered for the first intergalactic war. I've had thoughts of mass death on my mind ever since. It's one of those things that usually never leaves people. The moment you see hundreds of dead bodies lying on the ground, it'll imprint itself into your memories and haunt you for the rest of your life. It took me several years to get over the shock as much as I did and learn to deal with it, and I don't expect you to get over it any time soon either. I have faith that you'll do just fine, just as long as you don't let it destroy you," Ms. Wakeman explained.

"Don't let it destroy me, huh? That's so much easier said than done. I don't think you'll have to worry too much about that happening to me though. I'm sure I'll get through this somehow. Thanks for trying to boost my confidence…in your own strange little way," Jenny said followed by a grin.

"See, you're making some progress already. I don't get to see you smile much anymore. I hope to see more of that in the future," Ms. Wakeman said with a smile.

"I think you will. I'm kind of starting to get used to all this tragedy. I just need to force myself to think of happier thoughts from now on. Anyway, I'll see you in a little while, when I'm done with my homework," Jenny said before she started heading up to her room.

"_Speaking of something being so much easier said than done, you're going to find out that forcing happier thoughts into your mind will be one of the most difficult challenges you'll ever face. To make things worse, it's a life-long challenge_," Ms. Wakeman thought to herself as she continued typing on the keyboard.

* * *

About thirty minutes later, Jenny found herself struggling to stay awake while trying to finish her homework, and she couldn't figure out why.

"Is my power low?" Jenny whispered to herself.

Before she had a chance to check her power level, her head fell into her crossed arms and she drifted off into dreamland.

* * *

A tall large framed man dressed in black and gold armor pointed his hand at the woman sitting in front of a large computer terminal while shouting some kind of command. He looked like some kind of general from the hat that he was wearing.

"_What the…? Who are these people? They look like they might be robots. No wait, they have human faces. They must be human_," Jenny thought to herself.

Her attention refocused on the large man in black. She noticed that his shouting became more intense. She looked back at the woman and noticed that she didn't seem to mind the shouting at all.

"_This must be her job. She must be used to his shouting. Wait, he is shouting, isn't he? But why can't I hear what he's saying? Have I gone deaf or something_?" Jenny thought to herself.

As soon as she asked herself that question, a yelling voice originated from the terminal saying "_This is….from Sector Four. We are in need...assis… Mav…. taken control of…base_."

"_Sounds like someone's in trouble, but I couldn't hear all of the transmission,_" Jenny thought to herself.

Her attention refocused on the tall man in black. She attempted to read his lips since she still couldn't hear what he was screaming about.

From what she could determine, the man said "I don't care what they are doing right now. Contact them immediately and tell them that they are to be dispatched to Sector Four on the double. There isn't a second to waste…"

Jenny couldn't explain why, but time seemed to freeze at that exact moment. Suddenly, a bright red light started flashing repeatedly along with a loud alarm sounding. The sound was deafening. She began screaming as loudly as she could when she didn't know how to stop the noise. Suddenly, she woke up.

* * *

"XJ9, XJ9! Please, stop screaming," Ms. Wakeman yelled as she tried to calm Jenny down.

Jenny finally came to her senses, grabbed her mother's shoulders, and said "Oh, it's you. I thought you were whatever was causing that noise."

"What noise? You must have had another nightmare. This one must've been serious, just as bad as the nuclear attack nightmare you had before," Ms. Wakeman guessed.

"No, it was nothing like that one. It wasn't scary until right at the end of the dream, but it wasn't as serious as a nuclear attack," Jenny explained.

"Did your hard drive record the dream?" Ms. Wakeman asked.

"Yes, it's all up here," Jenny said as she pointed at her head.

"If it's something serious enough to make you scream for two whole minutes, I definitely want to see it right away," Ms. Wakeman said before grabbing one of Jenny's wrists and carrying her towards the computer room.

As they made their way towards the computer room, Jenny asked "Two whole minutes? Was I really screaming for that long?"

"Yes," Ms. Wakeman answered.

"It only seemed like I was screaming for about twenty seconds. I guess dreams will do that to ya," Jenny said.

After watching her dream on the large computer screen, Ms. Wakeman sat quietly and thought about it for a few moments.

"You look really serious mom. It's just a dream," Jenny said smiling.

"Just a dream, you say? It all seemed a little too vivid to be any ordinary dream. Those strange looking people, Sector Four, and what is Mav?" Ms. Wakeman asked.

"I think Mav might be a terrorist organization or something. That was the impression I got. Have you ever heard of something like that?" Jenny asked.

"No. And what is Sector Four? There is no such place on Earth with that name. Somehow, I seriously doubt any of this is related to any of those strange cartoons you kids watch these days," Ms. Wakeman said.

"Actually, no, no it's not. I've seen similar concepts, but nothing quite like that. I've never seen anyone dressed in that kind of armor. It's all a little too weird if you ask me. The weirdest part about it is that I couldn't keep myself awake before I fell asleep even though I have plenty of power left. That's the strangest part of it to me," Jenny explained.

"With that last piece of information that you just told me, I've started coming up with a few theories as to why you had such a bizarre dream. I'll have to study your information logs more thoroughly to be sure though. I'll tell you about it when I've come up with a conclusion. I do have one more question though. What did the man say when you started trying to read his lips?" Ms. Wakeman asked.

"He said 'I don't care what they are doing right now. Contact them immediately and tell them that they are to be dispatched to Sector Four on the double. There isn't a second to waste,' then time just seemed to stop," Jenny answered.

"Sector Four was mentioned twice in your dream, and he responded to the fact that the person from the transmission said Sector Four. Events that happen in dreams don't usually succeed each other in a way that makes that much sense. It wasn't just a random set of events. It's almost as if this actually happened," Ms. Wakeman said.

"I seriously doubt it. If it did, how could I possibly know about it?" Jenny asked.

"You have a point. I'll study it all to make sure, and tell you about it later. You can go back upstairs and finish your homework," Ms. Wakeman said.

"All right, I'll only take me about ten more minutes anyway," Jenny said as she stood up and headed up to her room.

"_I seriously have a strong feeling that this is more than just some dream. In fact, it may have something to do with what XJ9 sensed earlier. Maybe that's where I should start my investigation_," Ms. Wakeman thought to herself.


	3. Chapter 3

Later on that night, Jenny had yet another nightmare. In her nightmare, she found herself running from something that she couldn't identify. Everything else around her was completely black besides her pursuer. Every time she looked over her shoulder, she would see the same blurry figure. Over time, she realized that her pursuer was gaining on her.

Before she had the time to come up with a plan, the figure impaled her through her stomach with what looked like might be one of its arms. Suddenly, the figure burst into bright blue flames and began absorbing Jenny's entire body. Just as she was about to scream, she woke up.

Without hesitation, she looked around frantically at her surroundings.

"That's a relief. I didn't break anything while I was asleep. What the hell kind of nightmare was that anyway?" Jenny asked herself.

She looked at the window and said "It's 6:00am, but it's still dark. Honestly, sometimes I'd rather be fighting bad guys than to have these nightmares."

The image of the tall man in black from her earlier nightmare reappeared in her mind.

"He looked so ominous. From what he said though, he must be some kind of police chief or something. He might be a good guy after all, but he looks more like a bad guy. It's really hard to tell. They, he said they. Who are they? I feel like I shouldn't be worried about it, but at the same time, I feel like I should. It is just a dream, right? That's not what it felt like though. In fact, it felt like I was actually there. That was the most realistic dream I ever had, right up until the last part anyway," She whispered.

* * *

Once again, Jenny was the first student in class. And once again, she was staring at her desk speechless and motionless. Mr. Tier noticed that there was a difference this time. Her expression wasn't blank, it showed signs of fear.

"Ms. Wakeman," Mr. Tier called.

Jenny looked up immediately and asked "Huh?"

"You normally say 'Yes, Mr. Tier.' Something else besides the usual must be bothering you this time," Mr. Tier said.

"Yeah…I guess you could say that. It's definitely bothering me," Jenny said.

"You look like you're frightened of something. Is that true?" Mr. Tier asked.

"I think I am a little frightened now that you mention it. I've been having some really bizarre nightmares lately. The most bizarre where the one's I had yesterday and last night," Jenny explained.

"Another nuclear blast perhaps?" Mr. Tier asked.

"No, not at all. These were completely different. First, not too long after I started my homework yesterday, I fell asleep on my desk for some strange reason. In my nightmare, I found myself in some strange room with a woman sitting at a computer and a large man in black and gold armor shouting orders. A weird transmission came through the computer's speakers. It was a man's voice yelling something about needing urgent assistance. When the transmission ceased, the tall man in black started yelling again saying that someone is to be dispatched to the location that the transmission came from. That's when time seemed to stop and a loud deafening alarm started ringing over and over again. The sound made me scream as loud as I could until I woke up. Last night, I had a nightmare about some strange blurred figure chasing me down, impaling me from behind, bursting into blue flames, and consuming my whole body. The first nightmare felt so much more real than any other dream I've had in my life," Jenny explained.

"Wow Jenny, you seriously have issues to work out," Brit said as she entered the classroom.

"You're early today Brittany. Where is Tiffany? She's usually with you," Mr. Tier said.

"She's at the clinic receiving her yearly physical," Brit said as she sat in her desk.

"Oh, that's right. She mentioned that a few weeks ago. Though I don't exactly agree with your choice of words, I have to agree with you on the fact that Jennifer needs to resolve whatever problems she is facing right now. Then again, that first dream is beginning to seem pretty realistic the more I think about it," Mr. Tier said.

"That's what my mom said. She thinks it might be more than just a dream," Jenny said.

"I don't normally say nasty things about other people's parents, especially not when I'm this close to the person, but do you think she might be going senile?" Brit asked.

"The only reason I don't consider that comment to be particularly nasty is because I suspect that sometimes myself. I can't tell for sure yet though," Jenny answered.

"I know your mother pretty well, and I honestly doubt that she's going senile yet. So far, every time she's had this strong a feeling about something, she's always been right, in one way or another. And every time, people thought she was crazy. They thought she was crazy when she claimed that she could create you, but she did," Mr. Tier pointed out.

"You really think we should be worried then?" Brit asked.

"I didn't say that. Let's just wait a little while first. We don't know if it's anything serious or not," Mr. Tier said.

"Well…" Jenny said before stopping.

"Well what?" Mr. Tier asked.

"Well, you know, the last time a certain someone waited a little while, it played a crucial part in putting us in the situation that we're in now," Jenny pointed out.

"Oh yeah, the power plant manager. We can't expect it to happen that way every time," Mr. Tier said.

"Hey…I'm just sayin'…I just thought I'd point that out," Jenny said.

"Ok, you made your point," Brit said.

"She definitely did. We shouldn't just choose to ignore it completely. Either way, if we continue this discussion, we will have to discuss it at a later time. It's almost time for class," Mr. Tier said.

As Mr. Tier began sorting through a stack of papers, Brit looked at her watch with a confused expression. It would be another nine minutes before class started. Before Brit asked, Jenny signaled her to look outside the door. When she did, she could see the very tip of someone's shadow heading towards the classroom. She looked back at Jenny who was now signaling her to look at Mr. Tier. She looked at him for a second, then looked back at Jenny who was now shrugging her shoulders and turning her head from side to side indicating that she didn't really understand it all herself. A few seconds later, Brit realized then that Mr. Tier just has a lot of experience.


	4. Chapter 4

Later that day during lunch, Jenny kept staring at Grace with a very curious and slightly bewildered expression on her face. She examined Grace's movements very carefully for a total of eight minutes.

"_It's strange. She's gotta be the weakest girl in this school, but she was able to knock me down with one punch. Seriously, she can barely do simple tasks correctly without seeming as though she's dragging her entire existence around with her_," Jenny thought to herself.

Unknown to her, Jason was walking towards Jenny. As soon as she finally did notice, she was about object to him coming so close to her, but Jason quickly placed a small folded up piece of paper on the table in front of her. Without saying a word, he kept walking as if he had never acknowledged the fact that she was sitting there.

"_I somehow doubt this is a love note, but if it is, he should know by now that he's the last person I'd ever go out with_," Jenny thought to herself.

Jenny noticed at that moment that Jason somehow managed to give her the note without anyone else noticing. She didn't notice that until after she noticed the fact that nobody made any kind of comment on what just happened.

"_Fine, I'll read it. It's not like I have anything else better to do at the moment_," Jenny thought to herself.

She quickly unfolded the note and began reading it.

In Jason's hand writing, it read "No, this is not a love letter. This is a little more serious than that. In fact, what you're about to read may be one of the most interesting things you've read in a while. This is about Grace Harnell. Yes, I saw you staring directly at her for what seemed like ten minutes. I know what you were thinking about too. You want to know why she was able to knock you to the ground when no one else in this school could if they tried, well, besides maybe a football tackle from one of the players on the team. That's beside the point though. I've been wandering why myself for a while too now. Don't ask her, because she won't tell you. She doesn't like people asking about her past, and she'll definitely let you know. I researched the Harnell family and I found something interesting. In fact, the interesting thing is what I didn't find. If you look up the name, the last entry in any public record of the name Harnell stopped being recorded over 60 years ago. Then, all of a sudden, her dad's name, Robert Harnell, showed up again 20 years after he was born. I think there's more to her than we originally thought. You can look into this if you want. If you don't, I don't really care either way. If you want to talk about it, just use my e-mail address to contact me through a messenger program. I'm sure you still have it in your hard drive from last year.

P.S. Yes, I can write pretty fast. I know this is a lot in only ten minutes. One more thing. Please don't tell her I told you any of this."

Jenny folded the sheet of paper and put it in her book bag.

"_Now that I think about it, I should have deleted it a few months ago. But I have to admit though, that information that he found is pretty interesting. There must be more to you than I ever realized if you know how to search for information that thoroughly. I'll have to turn you in if I find out you've been doing any illegal hacking Jason. I doubt you are a hacker because I'm not convinced that you're careless enough to invite me into your life in any way knowing that I'm supposed to turn people in for that kind of thing. But yes, I agree with you on the fact that this is definitely something worth looking into_," Jenny thought to herself.

Jenny focused her attention on Jason. He was already waiting for her to look his way. They both stared at each other for a brief moment with a somewhat serious expression their faces. Jenny then nodded, and then started staring at Grace again. She didn't realize that Jason was also staring at her. She also didn't know that he was also grinning slightly. A moment later, he stopped grinning, and resumed eating his lunch.

* * *

Upon entering the book store, both Tuck and Brad were amazed at just how good of a job was done in repairing the place. After the robot attack, the store was a complete wreck. Luckily, it only suffered impact damage, so there was no fire, and no destroyed books. Some of the books were damaged badly, but none were utterly destroyed.

The first place Tuck ran to was a shelf near the rear end of the store. Brad ran after him knowing that even though the store was that large, Tuck would often find a way to end up lost in the most unexpected places.

"Whoa, hold on Tuck. Why the hurry?" Brad asked.

"No, no, nope, yes! They finally made volume two," Tuck said holding up the book he just found after sorting through several.

"Oh yeah, that Forgotten Myths and Legends book. You did say they were supposed to be making more volumes. Twenty five dollars is kind of expensive for a book these days, but you do have enough for it," Brad said.

"I've been waiting for this. I wanted to see what else they had to say about that demon story for a while now," Tuck said.

"Wait. Now I remember, the one that supposedly burned down that town by himself. I almost forgot about that," Brad said.

Tuck flipped through the pages as quickly as he could until he found what he was looking for.

"So what does it say?" Brad asked.

"It's a whole lot to read out loud. It would be better if I read it first, then summarize it for you like I did last time. Let's invite Jenny to come with us to the park like before. We can spend a little time together, and I believe I will have read it all by then so I can explain it to you," Tuck suggested.

"I guess that sounds like a good idea. Just remember, don't put too much chili on your hot dogs like you did the last time," Brad said while pulling his cell phone out of his pocket.

"You remember the fact that I put a lot of chili on my hot dogs, but you could barely remember a story about a ruthless fire demon. I think fire demons are a lot more important that chili," Tuck responded.

"Whatever!" Brad said annoyed.

* * *

Unfortunately for them, their trip to the park had to wait. Jenny got her first global threat warning in months. She figured it be best to deal with the problem as quickly as possible since Earth was still in pretty bad condition. The people could not really afford any more damage.

"Okay, this is the spot, but where are the aliens. That's right, they probably haven't quite gotten here yet," Jenny said before heading straight upwards.

"_Outer space; it's been over a year since I've been out there_," Jenny thought to herself.

As she watched the bright blue sky fade into black, she remembered her suicide attempt. If she had killed herself that day, her color would've gone from blue to black.

"_Kinda creepy how I can actually relate the two_," Jenny thought to herself.

Jenny found a spot to sit and wait. She activated her sensors to full power and waited for them to pick up anything unusual.

As she floated in one spot, she thought to herself "_It's so quite out here. I used to think it was creepy, but now…I think it's kind of peaceful. Complete silence_."

Her peaceful meditation was unfortunately brief. After only two and a half minutes, her sensors picked up an enormous space ship heading towards Earth.

"All right, they may not actually be a threat, but that's what the warning is for. We can't take any chances. First, I need to try to contact them," Jenny thought to herself as she tried to find the right frequency of the ship's radio receiver, if it has one.

It only took her one minute to find it. Immediately, she sent a signal indicating that she was trying to contact them.

* * *

The captain of the ship, along with several other crew members, were currently in the ship's bridge. All of them were robots from who knows where.

"Is that an incoming transmission?" The ship's second in command asked.

"Yes ma'am. You want me to answer the call?" another crew member sitting at a computer console asked.

"No, I'll answer the call," the captain said as he pushed a button.

A second later, a large window appeared showing a strange looking blue and white robot girl with a serious expression on her face.

"Would ye happen to be from Earth lass?" The Captain asked.

"Yes, but what's with the pirate accent and outfit," Jenny asked.

"I didn't expect ye to ask that question so quickly. If ye must know, we receive signals from Earth's television satellites. So far, I have yet to be impressed with real pirates these days, but the pirates from Earth from long ago, now they be the one's I admire. I decided to revive a good thing and take on their likeness. Enough o' that, why did you call us?" The captain asked.

"_They just keep getting weirder and weirder_," Jenny thought herself.

"Well, I may or may not look like it you, but I'm this planet's main defender. I responded to a possible global threat alert, and your ship is what triggered that alert. If you don't come in peace, then I'll have to fight you," Jenny explained.

All of the robots started laughing hysterically. Jenny's patience was beginning to wear thin.

"Do you come in peace or not? I don't have all day," Jenny yelled.

"Look at me, I be a pirate. Do I look like I come in peace to ye? I come to do what pirates do, you know, the whole pillage and plunder thing, rob ye of yer booty. I'm sure ye know how it all works. If ye don't, ye prob'ly been livin' under a rock. And since we all be robot's here, and most 'o us men, I may let one of me crew members have yer booty lass," The Captain said followed by another hysterical laugh from himself and the rest of the crew.

"Nice one cap'n," One of the other crew members said.

"Your just asking for a beating. I don't plan on letting you have mine or anyone else's booty, be it money, goods, or…I'm not even going to say it. If you want this planet, you'll have to go through me first," Jenny said.

"A challenge then, is it? Then it's a challenge you shall have. Just know that when you've been reduced to garbage, that I, Cap'n Black Phoenix, was the victor. Wait, hold on a second, I remember yer face. Ah yes, now I remember. Hey everyone, that be that XJ9 girl we saw on the news two years ago," Phoenix said.

"Hey, you're right captain. I remember her now. I thought she seemed familiar," The ship's second said.

"Yes, you were the one givin' Vexus all the trouble we been hearin' about. Oh, but I do have one question for ye. What happened to yer satellites? We suddenly stopped receivin' signals three weeks ago. By our calculations, ye stopped sendin' signals four months ago, so by the time we noticed the gap, it had to have been over three months since ye stopped," Phoenix said.

"The only answer I plan on telling you as that we've been having major technical difficulties. If you want to know more, you'll have to find out yourself. As I said before, you'll have to get through me first. I'm giving you ten seconds to turn around and leave before I attack. XJ9 out," Jenny said before she terminated the transmission.

"Well captain, she definitely seems quite serious. What do you think our next course of action should be?" the ship's second asked.

Phoenix grinned and said "I've always wanted to see Earth with me own eyes. If she really wants a fight, let's fight her on her own turf."

* * *

Jenny already had her lasers cannons ready as she saw the ship closing in fast. Instead of readying their weapons like she thought they would, they veered away from Jenny's direction by a few degrees and headed straight for Earth instead.

"So they're not running. I was afraid of this," Jenny thought to herself as she charged her lasers.


	5. Chapter 5

Jenny realized that she could move much faster than the ship could risk moving at this distance from the ground, so she headed straight for the ground first while still charging energy into her lasers. She also took the time to tell everyone in the area to run as fast as they can. She found a spot in the middle of a large parking lot and anchored her feet into the ground. She anchored herself because the recoil from her laser would be quite intense, even for her.

"All right Captain Phoenix, I warned you not to advance any further, but you didn't listen. I know you plan on parking here, but I don't plan on letting you land smoothly," Jenny said.

When the ship was within nineteen hundred feet from the ground, Jenny's lasers reached their maximum energy capacity.

"All right then, here's a little welcome gift from me," Jenny yelled.

* * *

"Hey cap'n, what's that?" a crew member asked as they all saw over half of the parking lot light up a bright blue.

"She's firin' at us. Raise the shield," Phoenix ordered.

The ship managed to completely raise its force field in the nick of time. For this ship's design, there is a fifty percent power force field and a one hundred percent power force field. Unfortunately for them, the ship must activate the fifty percent version before it can activate the one hundred percent. If they had only a few extra seconds of time, they would've been able to activate the one hundred percent version. When the laser hit, it broke through the shield and exploded damaging the side of the ship pretty badly.

"I see she was bein' serious after all. I wasn't plannin' on fightin' so soon, but she's askin' for it. Land the ship immediately," Phoenix ordered.

* * *

Jenny immediately activated her new high-speed sunlight absorbing solar panels to recharge the amount of energy she had just lost. They quickly lit up bright yellow as they absorbed large amounts of light.

"Too bad I can't do this as many times as I want. They'll overheat and melt if I use them too often. It is a good thing mom thought of getting to work on this upgrade right after we beat Smytus and Krackus," Jenny said.

As soon as Jenny was recharged, which only took ten seconds, she deactivated the panels and retracted them back into her body. It also only took about ten seconds for the ship to land. As Jenny said, it wasn't a smooth landing. The side of the ship that was damaged made it very difficult to keep it stable. The damaged side leaned downwards towards the ground. The damaged side hit the ground first damaging it even further. The other side landed, but with a slight thud. Instead of leaving the ship immediately, the pirates decided to activate the ship's lasers first.

"Oh crap, not what I expected," Jenny said as she dodged the first few rounds.

"_I honestly thought they were going to leave the ship first_," Jenny thought to herself.

She actually had a particularly difficult time dodging the lasers. Even Jenny had to admit that the ship's aiming capabilities were quite impressive.

I gotta take out those cannons quick," Jenny said.

In this situation, dodging and aiming at the same time was a very difficult challenge for her. After trying and failing to hit the cannons several times, she decided that the better strategy would be to hide behind something and aim from there. The worst part about it was the fact that she was running out of nearby places to hide since the lasers kept destroying large portions of the buildings they hit. There were still a few nearby buildings left standing, but in different locations. Jenny didn't want to reveal to them exactly which building she was going to hide behind, so she transformed her arms into one large drill and went underground.

A moment later, Jenny thought to herself "Wait, why didn't I think of this before?"

Instead of hiding behind a building, she decided to resurface right beside the ship. When she did, the lasers took aim, but would not fire because they were programmed with a failsafe to prevent them from damaging the ship.

Jenny took advantage of this opportunity and immediately began destroying each cannon one by one.

* * *

"I see she's not going to make this easy for us," The ship's second said.

"Thanks for pointin' out the obvious Bello. It looks like I'll have to take care of this matter personally," Phoenix said with a strong hint of irritation in his voice.

"And what do you wish for us to do in the mean time captain?" Bello asked.

"In the mean time…I want everyone besides Bello to get this ship up and runnin' properly again. And you Bello, I want you to accompany me outside. I don't think that little girl has what it takes to beat me, but I can't guarantee I won't at least get a few bruises, so to speak. I don't plan on spendin' the next several hours repairin' damages to me body. Best plan is to crush her as quickly as possible," Phoenix said.

"As you wish captain," Bello said while preparing herself for battle.

"And I want this ship repaired by the end of the day. Now, hop to it," Phoenix yelled as he made his way towards the ship's main entrance with Bello following behind.

* * *

As the ship's main entrance opened, Jenny yelled "Well, it's about damn time you came out of there."

"I must say, fer a little lass like yerself, you sure can fight well," Phoenix said with a grin.

"_Wow, he definitely wasn't kidding when he called me little. He's huge_," Jenny thought to herself while staring at Phoenix with an awestruck expression on her face.

Captain Black Phoenix. He had a very intimidating presence. He stood a height of thirteen feet. The only part of his body that was actually visible at the moment was his face due to the trench coat that stretched down to his ankles, his thick boots, his large hat, and his white gloves. The coat was made out of some kind of flexible metal. His face was mostly black, but his eyes were a bright white and circular. He had a large grey metal mustache over his mouth that zigzagged and pointed sort of downwards on both ends, and while he was grinning, all of his razor sharp teeth were plainly visible. His overall frame was large and made him look almost like a body builder.

Bello on the other hand, was much shorter. She stood a height of about nine feet. Most of her body was a few shades lighter green than Vexus, but looked nothing like her. But like Vexus, she didn't wear any clothes; so technically, she was naked, just like Vexus. She had long white hair that stretched half way down her back, bright red lips, and maroon eyes.

As they stood beside each other on the ramp protruding from the ship's entrance, they both appeared much more intimidating together than they would if they were separate.

"Hey captain, that's that look we see so often," Bello said.

"Yes, I know. She's already afraid of me simply from seein' how tall I am," Phoenix said with a wide grin.

After listening to what they said, Jenny changed her frightened expression into a battle ready one, and then said "Tall or not, I can still beat you. The bigger they are…"

Phoenix cut her off by saying "Yes, yes, the bigger they are, the harder they fall. I know most of your Earth expressions and figures of speech. The sayin' may be true, even for me, but you'd have to make me fall pretty damn hard to hurt me."

Both Bello and Phoenix began walking down the ramp in Jenny's direction. Jenny had her laser arm pointed at them, but neither of them seemed frightened in the least, and their pace didn't slow at all either. They didn't move quickly enough to make Jenny feel as though she needed to open fire right away, but she was still ready to take them both out at a moment's notice.

As soon as Phoenix's left boot landed on the asphalt, his body's weight was revealed with a loud stomping sound, and the fact that his boot sank into the asphalt by about a couple of centimeters.

Phoenix was the first to set both feet on the asphalt first. Jenny was quite surprised that a robot only that size could weigh quite that much. Bello followed afterwards, but when her feet touched the asphalt, they barely made a sound and didn't sink at all.

"It's not your height that scares me anymore, it's your weight. What could you possibly be made out of that would cause you to weigh that much?" Jenny said with a surprised look on her face.

"I be made of a lot of things lass. If ye really want to know, you'll have to beat me and take me apart so you can find out," Phoenix replied.

"So you really don't plan on taking my warning seriously and leaving, do you?" Jenny asked.

"Nope. I didn't travel all this way just to turn back on a threat. Here's what we're going to do, we're going to keep walkin' in yer direction, and we won't attack you if ye let us pass. If you insist on fightin' us, we'll fight ye back. If you attack me ship, we'll attack you. Let us spend our time here doin' what we came here for, and we'll leave you alone. I might even let yet join us if ye provide no resistance. Livin' here with humans can't possibly be all that great," Phoenix said.

As Phoenix and Bello made their way towards Jenny, Jenny said "As I told a certain other pair of robots a few months ago, I have my reasons for wanting to live with the humans here. I don't really expect people like you two to understand."

Jenny pointed her laser arm directly at Phoenix's face and began charging her laser.

"I don't care how big you are or how scary you look, and I don't care what kind of threats you make, I won't back down from this fight. I'll say this only one more time, turn around and leave before I'm forced to destroy both of you," Jenny yelled.

"Such bravery, and wasted on a foolish cause," Bello said.

Neither Bello nor Phoenix slowed their pace at all. Jenny waited until they were within twenty feet of her, and was prepared to fire, when Bello did something strange. She looked to her left away from Jenny and Phoenix and coughed in a very exaggerated manner. This forced Jenny to pay too much attention to Bello's intentional distraction. As soon as Jenny looked back in Phoenix's direction, he was nowhere to be seen.

"What the hell?" Jenny yelled.

At that moment, she noticed that Bello was pointing her right index finger straight up. This cause Jenny to look up and she noticed that Phoenix was about twenty feet from stomping her into the ground. With all of her might, she attempted to move out of the way. She avoided his stomp, but she couldn't avoid the shock wave from the ground caused by the stomp. The wave pushed her away from Phoenix several hundred feet and into a nearby supermarket.

Jenny found herself almost buried under many bags of potato chips and various other snacks. Her face and lower half of her left leg were the only parts of her body that were completely visible.

"That horrible girl, distracting me like that. That's so not fair. I had no idea she was going to do that," Jenny said as she started trying to stand back up.

"That girl's name is Bello," Phoenix said while standing only six feet away from Jenny.

"How did you get here so quickly?" Jenny asked in a frightened tone.

As Jenny struggled to get up, she slipped a couple of times on the snacks she accidently stepped on.

"I may be quite large, but I be a lot faster than ye might think," Phoenix replied.

A moment later, Phoenix raised his right hand and said "Watch this."

He snapped his fingers causing another shockwave. This wave wasn't quite as powerful, but it was much louder than the first one. It shattered all of the glass in the store and in the two nearby buildings as well. The force pushed Jenny against the wall. If it was as powerful as the first wave, she would've been pushed through the wall.

"And that lass, was with me glove on," Phoenix said.

Jenny's expression revealed that she was filling up with rage. After staring at her for a few more seconds, Phoenix's grin disappeared and turned into a slight frown.

"I must say, I'm disappointed in ye. I was hopin' for more of a challenge than this. Your eyes reveal to me that you've been this angry before. If I'm correct, the last time wasn't very long ago," Phoenix said.

"How could you possibly know that?" Jenny yelled angrily.

"Experience. I fought a robot before long ago who's eyes would also lose their color when he became angry. For you to be losin' yer temper so quickly, you must've experienced somethin' pretty bad not too long ago. I saw ye two years ago on the news…and you seemed as gentle as a lamb. When I saw yer face for the first time today, ye looked like you had experienced hell, or possibly a war. Ye had the face of a war veteran. I can see it even more clearly now than a few minutes ago. Your planet has been experiencin' more than a few technical difficulties. How do I know that? I'm directly linked to me ship and crew. Any information they gather is immediately sent to me. They're findin' out everything that's been happenin' in the past few months as we speak, and I know now that you attempted suicide and came close to losin' to Smytus and Krackus," Phoenix explained.

Jenny growled and asked "How are they finding out all of that information without even leaving your ship?"

"They don't need to. Some of me crew are computer hackers. They're hackin' into yer remaining satellites and wireless internet so they can find out information about this planet. From what they've been tellin' me, yer computers have poor security," Phoenix replied.

"None of that information will help you when you're dead, now will it?" Jenny asked.

Phoenix's frown transformed into a big grin once again, and he said "That's a surprise. Since when does XJ9 make death threats so quickly? Ye used to avoid killing unless ye really needed to. In fact, ye used to avoid mentionin' death or murder in yer conversations as much as possible. But that's what I like, you see. I want a challenge, and I see I'm not goin' to get it unless you're furious. If ye want to beat me, use yer anger. Let it build inside of you until it bursts with the force of a thousand volcanic eruptions."

With a loud growling voice, Jenny said "Shut up! You're really starting to get on my nerves."

Jenny transformed her right hand into a large boxing glove with spikes on the knuckles twice the size of her head and charged Phoenix as fast as she could head on. He grinned, dodged the punch, grabbed her left arm, and threw her out of the store and up against a light pole ten yards away. She fell off of the pole and landed on her left side. The pole finally began to fall over because it was cracked in two by her impact. She lay motionless only for a second as she transformed her hand back to normal and began rolling in his direction. While rolling, she transformed her entire body into an enormous circular saw blade.

Phoenix dodged the edge of the blade at the last second and flew up into the air while still staring at the building as it collapsed partially. Jenny came flying out of the building with her jet wings protruding from her back and both of her arms transformed into laser cannons. Moving at supersonic speed, she fired lasers from her arms and from her eyes and the same time.

Phoenix's white circular eyes glowed bright red. He then fired two large red energy balls from them directly at the path of Jenny's lasers. That was when Jenny realized what she was really up against. The energy balls easily swallowed her lasers and kept coming towards her just as quickly as the second before. According to her calculations, the combined power of both balls was almost equal to the large green energy balls the combined form of Smytus and Krackus used in their last battle. Her best chance of winning this battle would be if she had her enhancer with her, but realizing that didn't matter since her mom never finished repairing hers.

Her biggest problem at this moment was trying to dodge them in time. There was a chance that she would die if she got hit by them. With little time to think, she tried her hardest to veer upwards without ripping her body apart in the process.

All of a sudden, for seemingly no reason whatsoever, the balls exploded before touching her. Even though she wasn't hit directly, the force from the explosion still pushed her away pretty hard sending her flying in an upward diagonal direction. She transformed her body back to normal and landed on top of a flat roof. The landing wasn't smooth at all for she rolled almost uncontrollably until she reached the edge of the roof where she almost fell off.

Phoenix looked around in all directions wondering what just happened.

"Someone just interfered with our battle…but who?" Phoenix said.

"Interfered? Is that why your attack exploded prematurely?" Jenny yelled.

A few seconds later, they both heard a yell coming from the direction of the ship. They both looked over to see Bello lying on the ground unconscious.

Phoenix growled and yelled "Who the hell is attacking us? Whoever you are, show yourself."

He looked back in Jenny's direction and yelled in surprise "It's you!"

Still on her knees, Jenny looked to her left, then to her right, and then said "Vexus?"

"Get up off your knees Jennifer. You can't win this battle that way," Vexus said.

Jenny stood up and asked "Why are you…?"

Phoenix cut her off by yelling "Though I like the fact that I finally get to face the famous Vexus, I don't like the fact that you attacked me second in command. I can assure you that you'll pay for this insult, but first, I'd like to know how you managed to interrupt me attack and knock out Bello so quickly without me noticin'."

"If you know who I am, then you should know that I have the ability to teleport by opening small wormholes and traveling through them. If you don't, then you're the one that's been living under a rock. I thought that was common knowledge by now," Vexus explained.

"I guess I must have been livin' under a rock then. That's one thing I didn't know about you. If you know I made that livin' under a rock comment, then ye must've been spyin' on us the whole time," Phoenix said.

"And what if I was?" Vexus asked.

Before Phoenix had time to respond, Bello screamed "I'll kill that bitch!"

"I didn't expect her to get back up so quickly," Jenny said while standing up and preparing for battle.

Bello started running as fast as she could, which was about one hundred fifty miles per hour, for about two and a half seconds before taking flight and charging Vexus head on.

A second later, Phoenix yelled "Bello, stop immediately!"

Bello did as she was told and yelled "Why the fuck did you stop me?"

"Calm down and use your sensors. Somethin' weird is goin' on," Phoenix yelled.

Not only Bello, but everyone else started using their sensors as well, including the crew from the ship.

"It's…it's the same thing I sensed before, but stronger. What is that?" Jenny yelled.

"UNUSUAL ANOMALY DETECTED. INCONCULSIVE DATA. POSSIBLE DANGER. ESCAPE RECOMMENDED," A loud computer voice from a speaker on the outside of the ship said.

"What now captain?" Bello asked.

"Well, this is probably not good. First Vexus starts helpin' XJ9, and now this. Must be a bad omen. From what the crew has been tellin' me, the ship is capable of flyin'. We'll leave. We can just finish repairin' the ship on a different planet. I want to teach Vexus a lesson just as much as you do Bello, but I really don't think it's a good idea to hang around here for too much longer. If it is a problem, it'll be theirs to deal with," Phoenix said.

"Sneaking up behind me like that…if you're still alive by the time we come back, I'll be sure to end your life then," Bello said.

"I'm looking forward to your return Bello. In fact, if you're still feeling up to it, you can always disobey that pimp of yours and come fight me now," Vexus said with a grin.

"I'm not a whore, you decrepit fossil. You better hope that I don't ever see you again," Bello said.

Both Phoenix and Bello quickly made it back to their ship. About a minute later, the ship's engines started, and it took off into the air moving straight upwards. It wasn't long before the ship was completely out of sight.

"Wow, you sure do know how to make enemies," Jenny said.

"Yes, well, I've been making enemies all my life, so I'm used to it," Vexus said.

"You do realize that she was probably five times stronger than you or more, don't you?" Jenny asked.

"I know. If that anomaly hadn't shown up when it did, I wouldn't have made those insults. I just took advantage of her loyalty. I knew she wouldn't attack me," Vexus said.

"All of that aside, seriously, why did you help me?" Jenny asked with a concerned look on her face.

"You should probably be more worried about that anomaly. If you must know, I wasn't really focused on helping you specifically. I have no choice but to live on this planet for now. If they stole all of the oil, I would have a seriously hard time trying to survive. With you still around to defend the Earth, that increases my chances of survival," Vexus explained.

"No choice but to live here? You just said you have the power…hold on, you've always had the power to make worm holes. Why don't you use it to escape this planet?" Jenny asked.

"I'm surprised you're just now realizing how strange that is. I didn't really want to explain this to you, but the reason why is because I can only travel that way for a certain distance without losing control of it. I can easily control it up to about a hundred miles. I have difficulty beyond that, but if I go beyond six hundred miles, I almost completely lose control of it. The farther the distance I travel, the faster I move. After a certain distance, I'll reach a mind boggling speed, faster than I can really comprehend. I could try to land on Mars, but if my timing is off even by a fraction of a second, I could end up as far as the Oort Cloud or farther," Vexus explained.

"Oort Cloud? You mean that asteroid belt way beyond Pluto, at the farthest end of the solar system. That's like…that's about a light year from here. That's a really far distance to end up in less than a second. If that's the case, how come you could travel back and forth to Cluster Prime without any problems?" Jenny asked.

"That's because there's a machine on the planet that can regulate my ability far more efficiently than I can on my own. It's been deactivated ever since my exile from that place. Even if I successfully landed on that planet, I would likely be destroyed. Plus, traveling that way requires too much of my energy. If I tried traveling in short distances until I got there, I would run out of power before I got as far away from this planet as Venus is. Opening the hole requires power, and opening another one to get out of the stream requires power, and then there's the matter of closing them which also requires power. It's a complicated task," Vexus explained.

"What would happen if you traveled for a long period of time?" Jenny asked.

"Very perceptive of you. If I travel for more than an hour, I would reach a speed so fast that I wouldn't be able to get out of the stream without risking destroying myself. By that time, there would be a ninety percent or more chance that I would be ripped apart in the process of trying to get out. I'd probably be better off traveling forever. Then again, I don't know what would happen if I didn't try to escape and continued traveling even longer than that. I'm not the one that calculated these possibilities, my creators did that. A little known fact: there are thousands of objects they've sent through the stream thousands of years ago. Who knows how fast those objects are moving right now. If you try calculating that in your brain right now, you'll probably overload your processors. I don't recommend it," Vexus explained.

"I figured that. The reason I asked about your ability, is that I'm trying to figure out if there is a connection between the stream you're talking about and that anomaly. So far, it seems as though there is a slight connection, but nothing certain yet. I will most likely need mom's help on that. I gotta know though, why haven't you tried to attack me in so long? It's not that I want that, I just can't figure you out," Jenny said.

Vexus sighed and said "Honestly…I don't really have a desire to cause you or your humans any more harm. I lost it a while ago. I've plotted several times, but every time I get ready to go through with it, I can't really bring myself to do it anymore. This doesn't mean I plan on helping you, as in being some kind of hero like you, because I still don't really like any of you. In fact, I still hate everything you've done to me. I just want to find a new life for me, a break from my usual tyranny and plans for universal conquest. It's been the same thing, day after day, year after year, century after century. I've been doing the same thing for far too long now. I want to explore different possibilities."

"You realize that's going to be pretty difficult considering how much the entire human race despises you, don't you?" Jenny asked.

"Yes, I realize that completely," Vexus replied.

"To be honest, I never really hated you. I didn't like when you tried to enslave us, but I never actually hated you. The only person I can say I ever really hated was this girl I know in school," Jenny said.

"You mean that Brittany girl? Yes, I read about what you almost did to her. I was even surprised to find out about that. Knowing myself, I would've tried to take advantage of your decline just like Smytus and Krackus did, but I won't because I don't want to be a copycat," Vexus said.

"So even though we haven't had much contact in the past couple of years, you know pretty much everything about me. I know I'm becoming a different kind of person, and I know I'll probably never be the old me again," Jenny said with a frown.

"You probably won't. In my opinion, that's a good thing. You were quite naïve before. Now you're realizing the truth behind the way the world really works. It's hard out there. I know that better than you do, believe it or not. I wasn't always a Queen before my exile. I used to be at the bottom, so I know how it is," Vexus said.

"It's strange really. I never thought that I would ever have a pleasant conversation with you of all people. As long as you don't turn bad on us again, I actually hope we can have another conversation like this again," Jenny said with a partial smile.

"Who knows, it may or may not happen again. I'm not exactly looking forward to it again myself, but who knows, anything can happen. In any case, I gotta go. I've spent way too much time out in the open already. Time to go find my hiding place again. I'll be doing a lot of hiding for a while, I'm sure," Vexus said.

She turned around and flew away.

As Jenny watched her disappear, she thought to herself "_I guess anything can happen. Only time will tell. I don't sense the anomaly anymore, but sense it happened twice, I should try to investigate it a little more than before. That ship said possible danger. I just hope there is no danger. We can't really afford another huge battle like the last one_."

Jenny took flight and headed for home. On her way there she began thinking about some of the things that she saw while trying to destroy all of the berserk machines. One thing that always stood out in her mind was a rather disturbing realization.

"_With all of the dead people that I saw lying around, I realized that there would be a lot more sadness in the world than usual. But when somebody loses something, that leaves the possibility of someone else gaining something. Unfortunately, the someone in this equation weren't exactly people. They were crows. At least they were happy. Oh my god, that sounds so bad for me to even think of something that horrible_," Jenny thought to herself.


	6. Chapter 6

Jenny, Brad, and Tuck made their way to the city park and sat at their usual table. When they finally sat down, they all unpacked their lunches. Instead of hot dogs, Brad and Tuck had pizza this time. Jenny had her usual oil in a can, except she had two cans this time.

"Two cans? Since when do you drink that much at one time?" Tuck asked.

"Not very often. I won't be having dinner tonight because the specific type of oil my mom buys me isn't in supply here in town, so she has to go out of town to get it. If I drink two now, I won't have to worry about overheating or my joints rusting until morning," Jenny explained.

"Yeah, I can see why that makes sense. So Tuck, what new info did you find out about that demon guy?" Brad asked.

"I'm actually starting to worry even more now. This story is becoming too weird, even worse than before. Last time, we left off at the part where it said that the last place he was seen was in Russia in the year 1902. This one actually explains what happened, or at least what they think happened. In an area close to the Stanovoy Range on the coast of the Southeastern part of Russia, there was an area that was used as a fishing spot for villagers. They stopped using that area after a while because there had been many ghost sightings reported there. Plus, the fish had been dying because the weather kept fluctuating too rapidly. No one really knew the reason why. As far back as anyone could remember, it was almost always pretty cold there. As soon as the ghosts showed up, the weather started going crazy. They were sure it was because of the ghosts. Every time someone would go and investigate, they would never return to tell their story. Convinced it was the work of the ghosts, the villagers paid a priest to ward off the evil spirits. The priest traveled to that area with several of his closest friends. Several days later, two of his friends returned. One of them had gone insane, so he had to be dragged all the way back to the village by the other man. They questioned the men one by one. First, they questioned the one that was still sane. He said that he didn't really see what happened to the others because he was told to guard the food and supplies. He went to investigate when they had been gone for too long to find all of them dead but one. He could not figure out why they had died because there were no visible injuries on their bodies of any kind. The one that had lost his mind kept yelling something about a fight and an Oriental looking man with burning yellow eyes. They figured that what he was describing was a fight between ghosts, or possibly even demons. They also figured that the fire demon couldn't have been the one that killed the others because they would've had burns all over their bodies. After several hours of trying to calm the screaming man down, he finally said something coherent. He said "His laugh…I'll never forget his laugh." He then began laughing in a sinister manner like some kind of maniac. He would keep laughing until he got tired. Whenever he felt normal again, he would start laughing that way again. They felt as though they could do nothing for him and sent him to a city with a mental institution where he spent most of his life. The other man was paid for his efforts and he returned to his home. Strangely enough, immediately following that incident, the weather returned to normal and the usual number of fish in that area eventually returned to normal as well. The bodies were found, and sure enough, the man was telling the truth. Upon further inspection, it was revealed that a battle of some kind definitely took place there. Most of the area was a complete wreck. And…the book says that the identity of the supposed opponent of the demon is still trying to be determined. If they find out more, they'll let us know in later volumes," Tuck explained.

"Whoa! Okay…wow. That's pretty intense. So now they're saying that it's not just one demon, but two. If they are demons, why would they be fighting each other?" Jenny asked.

"I don't know. The book doesn't say. They apparently don't know either," Tuck answered.

"I want to say it's a bunch of bologna, but it's starting to sound even more convincing than before. Both stories say that the demon guy had a loud laugh. The whole thing is kinda freaky," Brad said.

"You know, if you consider how many centuries apart each event occurred, and the fact that it's been another couple of centuries since the last one, you might think that it could happen again soon," Tuck said with an odd grin.

"Let me guess, you really wanna see if I can win in a fight with him, don't you?" Jenny asked.

"Of course I do. It would probably be the coolest fight ever," Tuck replied excitedly.

"I think robots like that Captain Black Phoenix guy from earlier today or the other weird monsters are enough of a challenge for me. I don't want to enter the realm of demonic forces and witchcraft. I already have enough problems as it is. I don't need to become a target of the creatures from the underworld as well, if they actually exist," Jenny said.

"I hear ya. I wouldn't want that either," Brad said.

"Speaking of the pirate guy, what did he look like anyway?" Tuck asked.

Jenny sighed and printed out two color photos, one of Phoenix and one of Bello. She then handed both of them to Tuck.

After examining the photo of Bello, he handed it to Brad and said "Hey Brad, naked robo lady."

Jenny was trying pretty hard to hold in her laugh as she watched the blush appear on Brad's face.

"Hey Brad, you might not wanna stare too hard. Melody might kick your butt," Jenny said while still trying to hold in her laugh.

Brad handed Jenny the photo quickly as soon as she mentioned Melody.

"Yeah, you're right. Now, about his Black Phoenix guy," Brad said while trying to fight off his blush.

"Hey Brad. You know, Vexus is naked too," Tuck said with a grin.

"All right, that's enough. Stop trying to torture me," Brad said while attempting to rub the blush out of his face with his finger tips.

"All right, fine, here you go. You really wanna see a man that badly, that's okay. I understand," Tuck said as he handed Brad the photo.

Jenny couldn't hold her laughter in any longer. She laughed pretty loudly for a few moments while an irritated Brad looked at the photo.

"I see that Brad notices how tall, dark, and handsome he is," Jenny said adding to the joke.

"Now that's just not right Jenny. That was unnecessary," Brad said while handing her the photo.

* * *

Later on that night, Jenny was in her room preparing to go to sleep. She lay motionless and stared up at the ceiling. Her mind was on the fact that Phoenix said that he was planning on returning one day. The problem is that she didn't know if that day would be soon or much later on.

Worrying about Phoenix took her mind off of many other things such as Grace, Jason, Vexus, or the events of the past few months. She realized that she was actually quite afraid of him. She couldn't tell for sure, but she believed that Phoenix might just be stronger than the combined form of Smytus and Krackus. If her theory was correct, she realized that she would have a seriously difficult time trying to beat him.

"At least he didn't say anything about exterminating the human race like Smytus and Krackus did," Jenny said in an almost whisper.

Jenny was in the middle of closing her eyes to go to sleep, when all of a sudden, all of the alarms in the house, and inside of her body activated and were on full alert. Surprised, Jenny sat up really fast and began communicating with the house's computers.

"It's that anomaly again, but this time, there's more than one, and they're all over the place. Plus, these are the strongest readings yet. There's one in…Michigan. There's another one in Chile. There's another one in Uganda. There's even one in Antarctica. They just keep popping up. Let's see, there's one in Queensland Australia, Alaska, North Korea, Laos, Sri Lanka, Greece, Malaysia, and…Kyrgyzstan. Kyrgyzstan? I never thought I'd ever need to go there. There's even some in outer space, one under the Pacific Ocean, and even one underground in Arizona. There are a few as far out as Venus or Saturn, but I somehow doubt we'll need to worry about those. I was about to go to sleep too. Now I actually have to get up and go investigate these places. Wait, that's right, I can't do that until mom comes back with that oil. I hope she bought plenty of it, because I'm gonna need it," Jenny said.

Jenny then activated her communicator to contact her mom.

"Yes Jenny, what is it?" Ms. Wakeman asked.

"Mom, you seriously need to find a way to know when the alarms sound when you're away from home. It's a full alert. Those weird anomalies are popping up all over the world, and they're still there. They're not going away like they did before. I need to investigate them as soon as possible, so I need plenty of oil," Jenny explained.

"Okay, I see this is quite serious. I'll be home within the hour, and while you're waiting for me, make sure those computers are recording all the information they can. I'm going to be studying them for a while," Ms. Wakeman said.

"I'll do that, and I'll also wake up my sisters…just to be on the safe side," Jenny said.

"Good thinking. This situation could be quite dangerous to try and handle alone. All right, I'll talk to you again when I get there. Nora out," Ms. Wakeman said before deactivating her communicator.

"Well, we'll just have to wait and see, won't we?" Jenny asked rhetorically.

* * *

About two and a half hours later, Jenny was flying with XJ6 and XJ8 by her side heading towards Michigan. Jenny was wearing a back pack with several oil and fuel cans in it, and XJ8 also had several cans within her chest compartment.

It would be about thirty five minutes before they arrived at their destination since they had only just left the Tremorton city limits. Jenny alone could make it there in twenty minutes, but XJs 6 and 8 were slower flyers.

"Well girls, this is the first time we've flown together like this on a mission. The last time didn't really count, because there was no real time for planning," Jenny said.

"If mom didn't keep us locked up all the time, then maybe we would've had more opportunities like this," XJ6 said.

"She does not keep us locked up as much as she used to," XJ8 said.

"There's always a bright side, isn't there?" XJ6 said with a hint of intended sarcasm even though the statement was entirely true.

"The other bright side is that we get to see a lot more of the world," Jenny said.

"Even Kyrgyzstan," XJ6 said.

"Why is that so funny anyway? It should not be, but it is," XJ8 said with a grin even though she already knew the answer.

"We would never even dream of going there, plus it has a funny sounding name to us. That's why it's so funny," Jenny replied while grinning.

"For the simple fact that we already know the answer to the question also makes it funny for some reason," XJ6 said while still grinning.

"What about school?" XJ8 asked as she became more serious.

"Oh yeah, well, if this turns out to be a very serious situation, I will be allowed to miss school. If not, I can just go back home tonight and let the authorities take it from there. They're being notified as we speak actually. But then again, if it becomes serious enough to whereby we can't even handle it, we might need to go back home anyway and find more help. That would depend on what the threat is," Jenny explained.

"Okay. That makes sense. I just hope it's not as bad as last time," XJ6 said.

"None of us wish that. I wonder…what if humans could sense these disturbances like we can? If that were the case, would it give them a headache? Our sensors are reacting wildly to them, and for an extended period of time," XJ8 pointed out.

"You might be right. If that's true, this would be one time I'm glad we can't feel headaches," Jenny said.

Without warning, all of their sensors picked up yet another anomaly.

"I know you two sensed that. This one is really close by too, about twenty miles straight ahead," XJ6 said.

Suddenly, a bright flash of light pierced through the darkness of night. A few seconds later, it dimmed enough so they could see their surroundings. About twenty miles straight ahead of them, what looked like a new moon through the clouds, appeared in the sky. It shined straight downwards like a bright flash light. A few moments later, it dimmed some and bright ribbon-like beams of light started swirling around the light, but originating from the center. Then a dark hole opened up in the center and stabilized. The sisters could sense strange new types of energy coming from the strands, and the hole, but barely because of their distance from the hole.

Jenny looked at her left hand and yelled "Stop."

Both of her sisters stopped and XJ6 asked "What?"

"Look at everything. It's as if time is slowing down or something," Jenny said while waving her hand in front of her face.

XJs 6 and 8 looked at her hand, and noticed many afterimages following behind her had, and that her hand appeared to be moving more slowly than it should be.

"That is strange," XJ8 said as she observed her own waving hand.

All of their surroundings looked odd, as if they were underwater, but not quite. Suddenly, the waves of bending light stopped and everything appeared as normal again, with the exception of the hole that was still in the sky.

"I don't know what that is, but two objects just fell through the hole and are heading straight downwards. Let's go find out what these things are," Jenny said.

* * *

A bright flash of light, but a very brief one, flashed in front of his eyes. He looked up to notice that the much brighter light he was seeing was above him. He noticed that the light was growing fainter. He looked to his right at the figure beside him, and then down to notice that they were both falling, and fast. He quickly grabbed the unconscious man beside him with his left arm.

"We're above the clouds. That's not good. I don't know if I have enough power to stop us from hitting the ground too hard. I used too much of it in the battle," He said.

He pointed his right arm towards the ground and waited. The clouds quickly passed by them as the speed of their decent increased. It was dark, but he could see that the only things below him besides the ground were trees.

"I'm sorry about the animals that are probably going to die because of this, but I have no choice. We must not let him win," He yelled.

A bright blue light appeared in front of his right arm and grew in size until it reached the size of a basket ball. He waited until they were about fifty feet above the trees and fired the ball at the ground below. The force of the shot reduced their descending speed sharply, but it sped back up again when the explosion below them cleared. A couple of seconds later, he felt a hard impact as they both hit the ground with plenty of force.

Still conscious, he crawled over to the figure, and then said "Thank goodness. You're still alive. Just rest for a while…old friend."

A moment later, he heard the sounds of miniature jet engines heading in their direction.

"No…I don't have the power to protect him anymore. I need time to recover. I'll fight…with all I've got left if I have to," He said as he struggled to stand up.

The light from the flaming trees and plants danced around wildly providing a small amount of light, but not nearly enough to tell where he was. He lifted his right arm and pointed it in the direction of the loud incoming sounds. He had trouble seeing as his vision was blurred. He noticed three odd figures slowing down to a halt just above the trees.

As they slowly landed, the figure in the middle yelled in a female voice saying "Hey you? Drop your weapon now."

Through his blurred vision, he noticed that they were also pointing their weapons at him.

"I won't let you hurt my friend. If you're Mavericks, I'll have to take you down…even if it kills me," He said desperately.

"Maverick? You just said Maverick. Hey girls, I think that might just be what that M word was that we couldn't figure out," the girl in the middle said.

"You really think so?" The green one on the right asked.

"What are you saying? You mean…you mean you don't know what a Maverick is? But you're reploids. How could you not know?" he asked them.

"What the heck is a reploid?" the green one asked.

"I think that might be what they are," the large dark blue one guessed.

"Listen, we don't mean any harm to you or your friend. If you came in peace, then lower your weapon and we'll lower ours. You're the intruder here, so we came to investigate. Please, lower your weapon," the light blue one said.

He hesitantly lowered his weapon but kept it active just in case he's being tricked. His vision grew even more blurry and darker by the second.

The light blue girl walked up to him, carefully placed her right hand on top of his weapon, looked him straight in the eyes, and said in a calm tone "First of all, my name is Jenny."

"Jenny. I understand," He said in a tone that indicated that he was now much calmer as well.

"What is your name?" She asked him in the same tone.

A moment later, he said "X. My name…is X."

By this time, his vision and hearing was highly scrambled. He heard them saying something, but he could no longer make it out. His mouth closed. His face returned to his neutral expression, and the shine in his eyes disappeared leaving his eyes a dull shade of lime green. He heard the girl call out to him one last time, and then there was nothing but black.


	7. Chapter 7

Many blurred images of people that X knew passed by his eyes one by one. Some of them were his closest friends, and some of them his worst enemies. At the moment, he felt too tired to care either way. He just wanted to rest.

After countless blurred faces passed by him, one face in particular showed up, but wasn't blurred at all. He knew this aged man that he was seeing through a glass window, but couldn't remember his name immediately. After a few moments, it finally came to him.

"It's you…isn't it? You're Dr. Light," X said.

"Yes. That's correct. It is I, Dr. Thomas Light. I'm glad you remembered me X," Dr. Light said.

"It feels like an eternity since I last saw you Doctor. How have you been?" X asked.

"Aside from the usual problems of old age, I'm doing just fine. Listen X, there's something you need to know. If one day you should ever feel as though all hope is lost, you should never simply give up. Why would I tell you this? I'm afraid that one day in the future you'll have to face many enemies, both humans and robots. I'm hoping that it will never come to that, but I can't guarantee that it won't. Your struggles with them may seem endless, and tiring on your will to continue, but you must persevere. The fate of both robots and mankind will likely depend on your will to fight on," Dr. Light said.

"I…I think I understand. But Doc, when will this day come? And why me? Why am I the one you chose to save the people? I don't understand those things," X asked.

"Even if I explained it to you now, you would not understand. You haven't had contact with the outside world yet, so naturally, you wouldn't understand. I'm sorry, but the world is not quite ready for you. One day, you will get the chance to see the world, and to make your own destiny. I'm sorry to disappoint you X, but this may be the last time I'll have the chance to see you. Don't forget everything that I've taught you," Dr. Light said.

"Wait. There's still so much I want ask…" X said before everything went black.

* * *

X's eyes finally opened. As his vision cleared, he was becoming aware of his current surroundings. He saw several strange people that he could not recognize standing above him.

"Where am I?" X asked.

"Thank goodness you're finally awake. You had us worried to death," the light blue girl said.

"Why?" X asked.

"Well, you were so badly damaged and we thought you were going to die. We managed to repair you enough to save your life. A few minutes ago, you started screaming and talking to yourself, and you were even crying in your sleep," a short elderly woman explained.

"Crying in my…" X said as he lifted his left hand to his face.

He rubbed the tears from his eyes, and then yelled "Wait, where's Zero? He needs my help."

"I think he's talking about the red guy over there. I like that name," a small floating female sounding reploid said while pointing her antenna towards the other end of the room.

X quickly looked over to see Zero lying there still unconscious on a table with several wires and tubes hooked up to his body.

"Is he still alive. Please tell me he's still alive," X asked desperately.

"Calm down, please. He is still alive. He's in much worse condition than you're in, but he'll live," the elderly woman confirmed.

"That's good. Wait, now I remember. You were the one named…Jenny. I think my memory is correct," X asked.

"Yes. My model name is Global Response Unit XJ9, but I prefer to be called either Jenny, Jennifer, or Ms. Wakeman. I'm usually referred to as Jenny," Jenny explained.

"I see, and this Wakeman name. Is that the name of your creator?" X asked.

"Yes, that would be me. I am Noreen Wakeman, the creator of all of the XJs in this room. There are nine of them total. But enough of that for now. Who and what are you, where do you come from, and how did you manage to get here?" Ms. Wakeman asked.

"What am I? Wait, the green girl over there asked me what a reploid is. Is it really true that none of you know what a reploid is?" X asked.

"I think we're just as confused as he is right now," a purple girl said.

"That's true, we have no idea what a reploid is. Are you a reploid?" Jenny asked.

"Okay…I'll try it this way. What do you call yourselves?" X asked.

"Well, we call ourselves robots. You seem like a robot to me, but you're different. You're more like a cyborg," Jenny replied.

"Robots, cyborgs, those are terms I haven't heard in a long time. Yes, we are cyborgs. Reploid is short for 'replicated android.' What we know of as robots are more like ordinary machines. We call those 'mechaniloids.' But there's more. All of the humans have been implanted with cybernetic parts to help increase the span of their life and to help fight off diseases and other illnesses. Because of this, the line between humans and reploids has been blurred to the point that we've pretty much become one race…sort of. Both humans and reploids together are now known as 'humanoids.' I bet this all sounds strange to you, doesn't it?" X asked.

"That's actually quite a fascinating explanation, but the last time we checked, humans with cybernetic implants are still quite rare," Ms. Wakeman replied.

"Then I have come to the conclusion that we have accidentally transported ourselves to an alternate dimension," X said.

"You really think that's what happened?" We had that theory in mind…but we didn't really wanna jump to that conclusion. That concept is so bizarre," Jenny said.

"Bizarre? I guess you can call it that. To help me further confirm this, this planet that you're living on, it is called Earth isn't it?" X asked.

"Yes. It always has been," Jenny replied.

"We come from Earth too. I'll try something else. Did a pair of scientists named Dr. Thomas Light and Dr. Albert W. Wily ever exist on this planet?" X asked.

"No, I'm sure of it. None by those names existed. Why did you ask?" Ms. Wakeman asked.

"First, I noticed the date on your monitor. It says that it's the year 2094. Dr. Light and Dr. Wily became famous sometime between the years 2000 and 2010 for creating the first robots that can think for themselves. They even won the Nobel Peace Prize for it. If you don't know who they are, then they only existed in our dimension. Weird? Bizarre? I can see the look on your faces quite well. The time period that I am in is well over a hundred years after your time period," X explained.

"So you must really be from an alternate dimension? That would explain what those anomalies all over the place are. They're portals to another dimension. Now all of the equations that I've been trying to solve are starting to make sense. This is pretty exciting," Ms. Wakeman said.

"Let me guess. There are a lot of them, aren't there?" X asked nervously.

"There were a lot of them. They closed up this morning. Is that a problem?" Jenny asked.

"Then my fears are correct. We weren't the only ones to land in your dimension," X replied.

"Now you're starting to worry me. Who else landed here?" Jenny asked.

"If I'm correct, a war is about to start. It was never my intention to spread our problems to other worlds," X replied.

"We can't afford any more wars right now. We're already in bad shape as it is. I hope your wrong about this," Jenny said.

"I hope so too. Unless you're something special, you don't stand a chance against Sigma," X said.

"Sigma?" the large dark blue girl X remembered from before asked.

"Yes, Sigma. He's been the main reason for most of the senseless destruction in our world for years. He never stops. He wants to destroy the human race so the reploids can reign supreme and start some kind of new age he keeps talking about. If he's here, it's only a matter of time before he starts trying to destroy the humans here," X said while getting increasingly angry.

"So you and Zero are supposed to be the protectors of your world, and Sigma must be one of the Mavericks you were talking about?" Jenny asked.

"Well…you're almost right. Zero and I are part of an organization of Maverick Hunters. We're kind of like police officers. There are many Hunters, but the two of us are some of the few S-class hunters in existence. We take on the most dangerous missions. Most of the Mavericks seek out Sigma's help in order to get upgraded to the point where they're either as strong as us, or sometimes stronger. So, lately, most of the actual maverick hunting has been done by Zero and me. In that sense, we are the protectors of the world, but we don't like to think of ourselves that way. Sigma is sometimes referred to as the leader of the Mavericks because he is the most powerful, and he's usually the one behind most maverick operations. Some Mavericks chose to work alone, so that technically doesn't make Sigma the leader. The term maverick, is actually just a label. It's another word for criminal," X explained.

"Well, that makes sense. I noticed that your design is similar to this guy I saw in one of my dreams. He was tall, and had a large frame. He was wearing mostly black, and some gold. He also had a black hat. He reminded me of some kind of general. I know you already find it strange that I would even know about the term maverick, but not know what a reploid is. Well, in the dream there was a distress signal being transmitted through a computer console. It said…" Jenny said.

Ms. Wakeman pressed a button on the computer causing the message to be played back.

It said "_This is….from Sector Four. We are in need...assis… Mav…. taken control of…base,_" and then the message stopped.

"So, you're saying that you somehow received that transmission from our world. I didn't know that what we did would have that kind of effect. I heard the same transmission a couple of days ago in my world. So that definitely confirms it. I am in another dimension after all. That large man you spoke of is my commanding officer, Commander Signas. Oh, and before you say anything, Signas and Sigma are not related. We used to get that comment a lot back home," X explained.

"I had a feeling of that. It seems that where ever there is intelligent life, there's also great misery," an odd looking robot with tank wheels for legs said.

"Umm…?" X said confused.

"Don't mind XJ7. She's usually talking about depressing things. What she said is apparently true though. There's another thing I'd like to know. If you got here in the first place, you can go back, can't you?" Jenny asked.

"Actually, we might be stuck here. If Sigma is still back home, then my world is in grave danger. If he's stuck here like us, then our problems have become your problems," X replied.

"If you are stuck here, what would've caused it?" Jenny asked.

"The teleporter used to enhance and regulate our new long distance teleportation technology malfunctioned during our battle. It broke down completely after it used up the remainder of its power supply to create this new type of portal that we had never seen before. We were all pulled in, and a few minutes later, I found myself falling out of your sky with Zero in my left arm. That's one thing I'll have to try to do while I'm here, is to somehow communicate with someone from home. I just don't know how," X explained.

"New teleportation technology? You mean you guys already have the ability to teleport?" Jenny asked.

"We don't personally. We use large machines designed to teleport us to different locations around the planet if we need to. Our new technology was supposed to help us travel much farther distances, but it didn't exactly work out as we planned. It probably would have if Sigma didn't try to steal it," X replied.

"Wow, it sounds like you guys have some of the same kinds of problems we have. We don't have teleportation to worry about, but we do have villains always trying to steal, kill, or whatever else villains do," Jenny said.

"And I wish it would stop. I'm seriously getting sick and tired of having to deal with them all the time. I often ask the question, is getting along with each other really too much to ask. I wish that wasn't the case, but I'm becoming convinced that it might just be too much," X said with a hint of sadness in his voice.

After a brief moment of silence, a voice from the other end of the room said "Still the same old X."

Surprised, everyone looked in the direction of the voice.

"Zero. I'm glad you're still with us man," X said.

"You're awake? I predicted you wouldn't be awake for at least another three or four days, considering your condition," Ms. Wakeman said.

"Well, that's actually partly his fault. He has a tendency to be a little reckless from time to time," X explained.

"I see," Jenny said.

"Shut up X. You know that if it wasn't for me, you'd probably be…in much worse shape than I'm in now," Zero said with smile on his face.

"I guess you're right," X said followed by a laugh from both Zero and himself.

"I wish we did wait until Zero woke up, that way, we wouldn't have to explain the whole situation again," Jenny said.

"Don't worry about it. I can just connect to X with one of my cables so he can transfer all the information to me in a few seconds," Zero explained.

"Okay then. That saves us some trouble," Jenny said.

"How many times do I have to tell you X? You really shouldn't worry so much. I know you're impatient, but everything has to run its course. You're always going on and on about how you wanna create this perfect world you conjured up. Perfection cannot be rushed," Zero said.

"I know, but…" X said with a sad tone.

"Anyway, what we should really be concerned about now is getting our bodies repaired. Our auto-repair will only go so far," Zero said.

"Yeah, you're right," X said.

"We don't know how to repair you though. If we did, I'm sure mom would've had you repaired by yesterday morning," Jenny said.

"Well then, I guess we have no choice but to teach you. I know Zero's confused right now, so if any of you could get me close enough to him so I can link us together, it would be greatly appreciated," X said realizing that he was in no real condition for walking unless he had to.

"Well, I can see this is going to be a long day. The good thing is that I'll be able to learn more about your technology, Ms. Wakeman said.

"Good luck learning anything from either of us," X said.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Ms. Wakeman said.

"Let's just say for now that we don't even know everything about ourselves. Yeah, it's a long story," X said.

"I can't wait to hear it," Ms. Wakeman said.


	8. Chapter 8

As soon as Zero finished a complete diagnostic test on himself, he stood up and looked at himself in a mirror. He paid very close attention to every detail of his body to insure that everything was in perfect order.

Both Ms. Wakeman and Zero were in one of the many underground rooms of the Wakeman residence.

"I'm surprised you were able to do such an amazing job with repairing my body ma'am. Thank you very much," Zero said.

"I'm surprised it took so long to get this right. I had no idea I'd end up spending a week and a half learning how to repair you two. I had to practically invent a new type of metal to repair your exoskeletons alone. Your enemies must be very tough to be able to cause this kind of damage to you. I'll definitely have to apply this knowledge that I gained from you to XJs 1 through 9. I feel like I should be the one thanking you. Once I outfit the girls with this technology, our enemies will have a much tougher time dealing with us," Ms. Wakeman said.

"Yeah, but you gave us a few new gifts as well. Our enemies will be a little surprised too," X said as he walked in through the door while holding XJ1 in his hands.

"Just remember, this repair job wasn't exactly cheap. I'll let you have the first one for free because you gave me so much new technology to use," Ms. Wakeman said as a reminder.

"Yeah, we understand. It's only fair," X said as he placed XJ1 down on top of a counter next to Ms. Wakeman.

"But I'm disappointed that I still can't reproduce the same robotic DNA changing effect that you are capable of," Ms. Wakeman said frustrated at the fact that every couple of minutes she would get an error message on her screen from trying to copy the DNA technology.

"People have spent most of their lives trying to do that on their own. It's not an easy thing to figure out," Zero said.

"I can tell. I've spent several hours on this already, and it's seems like I've just started. It's a good thing your bodies are capable of incorporating that new metal into your design, otherwise, when you try to transform, you would probably hurt yourselves," Ms. Wakeman said.

"So, how well has Jenny been able to keep our existence a secret so far?" Zero asked.

"This answer is a little vague, but let's just say it hasn't been easy," Ms. Wakeman answered.

* * *

No, it hasn't been very easy at all. Any idiot could tell something was definitely amiss. Jenny would remain much quieter than usual and would avoid talking about the strange lights that appeared in the sky that had been reported and broadcasted about on almost every TV channel and radio station. She would seem to pretend that it never happened.

World leaders and law enforcement were notified of X's and Zero's existence, and the two even explained their story to them, but they all agreed that the general population should not know of their existence right away. They were still working on a way of presenting the two strangers to the public in a way that wouldn't cause mass panic.

Of course, this also meant that the Wakeman residence had to be monitored more heavily than before. Though the strangers seemed to have good intentions, they weren't going to be trusted so easily. Both X and Zero understood their concerns all too well. They weren't even trusted very well in their own world after all.

* * *

Jenny was the only person in this particular school hallway at the time. After inputting the combination to the lock, she was finally able to open her school locker. When she opened the door, the first thing she noticed was a folded sheet of notebook paper.

"Great. Another wonderful note from one of my many adoring fans," Jenny said sarcastically.

The letter read "Hi Jenny, it's me again, yeah, the guy who's face you almost destroyed. Yeah, it's your 'closest friend' Jason. I'll get straight to the point. Everybody and their dog knows you've been hiding something. I wouldn't be too surprised to find out that the government knows as well and has been pressuring you to keep all the info on the down low. I thought Grace was the one I needed to worry about, but then you go and pull this little stunt. I'm not going to assume the worst yet, but you might wanna watch yourself from now on. This ain't exactly a threat or anything, but if you keep leaving us in the dark, somebody might take some kind of action, and it might not be a very diplomatic approach. Just thought I should let you know…though I'm sure you've already thought about this."

Jenny refolded the sheet of paper then looked around to see if Jason was anywhere nearby. He was nowhere to be seen.

"_He still has that weird little way of getting on my nerves. At least it wasn't quite one of those hate letters that I get from time to time. He is right though, we can't keep them a secret forever. It's not as if I like keeping secrets from people, but if I say anything now, I'll be in trouble_," Jenny thought to herself.

She looked around one more time to make sure Jason wasn't spying on her. After a few moments, she saw someone staring directly at her, but it wasn't who she expected. This time, it was Grace.

The only other time Grace paid her this much attention was when she defended Jason. This was also the only other time Jenny looked directly into her eyes. Grace didn't seem frightened at all this time. Her expression was quite serious this time around. The look in her eyes reminded Jenny of some kind of carnivorous animal that had its sight set on its prey. This was one of the only times in Jenny's life that a human ever caused her to feel genuine fear. Graces eyes were locked onto Jenny like a weapon's targeting system. It seemed as though if Grace was there for a fight, she wouldn't stop until one of them died. She showed not even a single sign of wavering or intention of backing down. That's what made Jenny feel the amount of fear that she did.

They both remained perfectly still for a few moments. Then, Grace started slowly making her way towards Jenny.

"_Oh shit! She's actually walking towards me. How the hell do I handle this situation? Why the hell am I afraid of her?_" Jenny thought to herself as she started to become frustrated.

The entire time, Jenny felt as though she might end up having to defend herself, but she didn't make any sudden movements or get into any kind of battle stance. She didn't want to make herself seem like a threat to any more humans.

Grace stopped walking when she was about seven feet away from Jenny. Jenny guessed she was trying to avoid getting too close.

"So…what…do you want from me?" Jenny asked with a slight fearful tremble in her voice.

A moment later, Grace finally said in her usual tone "What indeed? It's not just…what I…want, it's what we want. We want…to know what…you've been hiding."

"I keep telling everyone, I'm not hiding anything," Jenny said.

"I may appear stupid…to you people, but I'm…not. For you to…go through this much trouble…to hide something…this something is probably…potentially dangerous. Those portals…in the sky, and then you of all people…pretend as though…nothing happened; there's got to be…more to it than you're telling us," Grace said.

"Portals? How did you kno…?" Jenny asked before stopping herself from saying anything further.

"I knew it. You do know…more than you've been…telling us. I knew those…were more than…just lights. But don't worry…I don't intend to…tell anybody…else just yet. This is…a dangerous game you're playing. To be honest…I have a feeling that…you're not hiding something, but someone," Grace said before turning around.

As Jenny watched Grace walk away, she thought to herself "_How could she have guessed that? She was the only person to guess that those lights were actually portals. She must've guessed that someone came through. But, that look on her face. She seemed as though she was certain, that she knew that someone came through that portal. But that's complete nonsense. How could she know_?"

A few moments later, after Grace disappeared from her sight, Jenny thought to herself "_Hmm…maybe Jason was right. Maybe…there really is something more to her than we originally realized_."

* * *

About 70 miles north of the South Pole in Antarctica, a research team set up a perimeter around the area that one of the portals in the sky was above. They didn't focus on the sky since the portal was no longer open. They focused on the ground below the portal because there was evidence of something heavy dropping from the portal and into the ground.

While digging, the researchers were expecting the arrival of a French general, the woman who gave them the order to dig in that spot in the first place. Fourteen more minutes of digging through ice in well below freezing weather seemed more like four hours to some of them. They were relieved when the general finally arrived.

As she stepped out of the helicopter, she was suddenly reminded of why she hated Antarctica so much. Her last trip there one decade ago almost gave her frost bite in several locations on her body even with all of the protection she was wearing.

"Has your team managed to find out what's under there yet?" the general asked.

"I'm…sorry ma'am. We are still trying…trying to find out," the freezing man responded.

"I know you're cold and frustrated, but the faster we find out what this thing is, the faster we can leave this potential grave yard," the general said.

"I understand…but these men have been digging…for six hours straight. If they don't return to the shelters soon…they could become seriously ill," the man said.

"I was under the impression that they've only been digging for four hours. Six hours is far too long. Tell them to return to the shelters until they recover," the general said.

The relieved man hurried over to the diggers and told them the news they had been waiting to hear for a while. They quickly climbed out of the hole they were in and headed for their shelters. They were about half way to the shelters when their detection equipment activated and began beeping wildly.

"What is going on? Someone, tell me what your sensors are detecting," the general ordered.

"There seems to be a high concentration of electricity under there. It's probably some kind of machine. It seems to have activated," one of the men responded.

The ground began rumbling under their feet as it seemed as though whatever was under the snow was trying to break free from its frozen prison. About twenty seconds later, the rumbling finally stopped. Before anyone had chance to say or do anything else, a bright purple flash of light filled the entire area, and then disappeared. Everyone looked up first to see that a laser beam of some kind was fired straight up out of the hole and into the sky. The diggers were all very thankful that they got out of that hole in the nick of time.

A moment later, two large dark grey rod-like objects became visible, which then became a face as what was revealed to be a robot of some kind was rising out of the hole. The rods were actually his horns, or possibly antennae. His face was white while the rest of his head was dark grey. He continued rising out of the hole revealing the rest of his massive body. His arms pointed forward, but bent slightly at the elbows, and his hands were balled into fists. His hands were mostly white. The overall color scheme of his body was dark grey, some black, white, gold, and a few small red details. He was about 17 feet in height.

They could all tell by looking at him, that he was not the Commander Signas that X and Zero had described even though his appearance seemed close to Signas's description. They were hoping that this one was not one of Sigma's followers.

The giant robot hovered for a moment, then moved away from the hole slowly and finally landed on the ground. He finally lowered his arms to a resting position.

The general took a few steps forward, got his attention by waving her hand, and asked "What is your name?"

"I am called High-Max," High-Max responded in a voice that was surprisingly not quite as deep as they expected.

"I mean no offense by saying this, but to us, that's a pretty odd name," the general said.

"I know that my name is unusual, so I take no offense," High-Max said.

"My name is General Adrienne Fabrice of the French Army. I am under direct order to investigate this area. So, why are you here?" General Fabrice asked.

"I am here to…where exactly is here? This is not the world I am familiar with. This world's energy signatures are different. I will discover the meaning of this soon, but I will answer your question before I leave this area. I am here to destroy the nightmare," High-Max responded.

Not giving either of the humans a chance to speak, he activated the boosters on the bottom of his feet and took off flying into the air in the direction of North America. For a robot so large, it was a wonder as to exactly how he was able to move so quickly.

After brushing the snow off of her face caused by High-Max's abrupt take-off, General Fabrice said "He's heading for North America. Whoever is able to help me contact those countries, I need your assistance now. Hector, did you manage to record all of that with that camera?"

"Yes ma'am. I have it all on tape," Hector answered.


	9. Chapter 9

X and Zero were sure to be contacted pretty soon for clarification on High-Max, but they had business to attend to first.

"Lately, these alerts have been occurring as often as they used to before the attack. So, I'm guessing that things are finally starting to return to normal. I see you two are definitely trained for fast response. I didn't expect you to get in here so quickly," Jenny said while listening to the loud alarm noise.

"It's like an instinct now. We've been doing this for a long time. So, what exactly is the emergency anyway?" X asked.

"There's some kind of monster attacking the power plant. I hope you all can put a stop to this before it causes any major damages. If that happens, it will be quite a while before they can repair it, and we'll be without power until then. It was already practically destroyed a few months ago, and getting the necessary funding to repair it again so soon will be a tough battle," Ms. Wakeman explained.

"Plus, if you two are as good as you say you are, this could be the perfect way to introduce yourself to the world…as heroes," Jenny said.

"I can't really think of a better way for the time being. Plus, your president said that would be a good approach," Zero said.

"All right then. Let's do this. We can't teleport like we usually do, but it's a good thing you built us these motor bikes Ms. Wakeman. Thanks a lot," X said.

As Jenny, X, and Zero turned and began running towards the garage, Ms. Wakeman yelled "You're welcome."

* * *

The motorcycles may not have been able to hover like the ones X and Zero were used to, and they weren't quite as fast, but they were definitely efficient enough to do the job. As they rode through the streets, they received many odd looks from the people they passed along the way. They expected it since their bodies design was so much different from anything the humans of Jenny's world were used to. Some people were quite frightened, and some thought that these new guys were the coolest looking couple of robots they'd ever seen.

As they neared the edge of the city, they could hear gun fire and a load roar coming from a large building ahead of them.

"That must be the place," Zero said.

"Looks like some things may never change," X said.

They stopped and parked their bikes in a hidden location and began heading to the plant the rest of the way on foot. As they made their way around the nearest building to the plant, they could see bullets zipping through the air in the same direction the street was pointing.

With their backs up against a wall, Zero said "We probably shouldn't risk getting hit by those bullets. We could also run the risk of accidentally sending the bullets back in the direction of the officers if they ricochet off of us."

"You're right. I think it would be a good idea for me to go to one of the roof tops and try my luck from there," X suggested.

"All right then. I'll back you up if you need it, but in the mean time, I'll try to find another angle as well," Zero said.

X jumped up into the air and began expertly performing his usual wall kick maneuver. He jumped against one wall in an upward diagonal direction, pushed himself off of the wall with his feet as if he was jumping from the ground and repeated this action until he reached the roof top of the next building.

He remained crouched while running alongside the edge of the roof with the only thing concealing him from everyone's sight below being an extension of the outer wall protruding upwards around the edges of the roof. He stopped, and peeked over the side to get a look at the monster below. It appeared to be a large blob of liquid electricity with large amounts of electricity shooting out of its body. It definitely didn't take a rocket scientist to realize this monster was at the plant to drain all of its power.

X looked up to see Jenny hovering far above the monster looking around trying to find the best approach to attacking the monster. He could see that she didn't want to take any unnecessary risks.

Jenny looked down to see that X was on the roof of a building below her trying to do the same thing she was. She zoomed her vision in on him and saw a flash of light coming from his right hand as it transformed into the barrel of a laser cannon. It was the same weapon she saw the first time she saw him.

"Dammit, if I get too close, that much electricity might fry my circuits. If I fire, I might feed it. I'd throw water on him, but that might not work since that thing is made of liquid," Jenny said while becoming frustrated.

X pointed his cannon at the monster and fired a small orange energy ball at the monster to test its effectiveness. With amazing speed, the monster lashed out at the ball with a portion of itself in the form of what looked kind of like a tentacle and grabbed the ball. It pulled the ball into its body and absorbed X's shot.

"Well, that's no good," X said disappointed.

The police stopped firing when they saw what just happened.

One of the officers yelled "Hey look! Who's that blue guy on the roof?"

"I don't know, but he seems to be on our side," another officer said.

The monster knew that X's attack was not a deliberate attempt to feed it. It knew that X was there to try to take its life. It pointed another tentacle in X's direction and lashed out at him at full speed.

Instinctively, X jumped out of the way. As soon as he landed, he began running and jumping to each rooftop he made it to knowing full well the monster was chasing behind him. Each tentacle-like extension was being used to help the monster pursue X. After pursuing X for about fifty yards, X's armor color scheme suddenly changed from its usual blue and sky blue to red and sky blue. He then began absorbing energy from the air around him all while still avoiding the monster.

"I've seen him change colors before, but I've never seen him absorb energy like that. I wonder what he's about to do," Jenny said.

The monster had trouble keeping up with X since it had to drag its own massive body around. As soon as he got a good enough distance away from the monster, X stopped, turned around, and leaped forward after the monster. He converted all of the absorbed energy into a ball of flame that surrounded his entire body.

"What the fuck?" Jenny yelled in surprise.

Most of the people on the ground watching had a very similar reaction to what they just saw. They watched as X crashed right shoulder first into the monster pushing it along with his momentum. It all only lasted about three and a half seconds. That was when the flame disappeared from around X's body, and then he jumped off of the monster while watching it fly in the direction he pushed it in. For only a second, he saw what was at the center of the blob. A small round red and yellow machine about the size of a baseball was what he saw just before the monster reformed its body into a ball again.

"That thing is just like those devils we fought before. It's actually a machine. It's true self is in the center of the blob. We need to find a way to weaken it first," X yelled.

As Zero was walking out from between the buildings where he was hiding, he said "Well then, it looks like I won't need to find another attack angle. Don't worry officers; we'll take care of this monster for you."

"I know who they are now. Those are the guys they told us about," one officer said.

"You mean the ones from another dimension or something? They were being serious when they told us, but I still don't quite believe it," another officer said.

As Zero reached behind his back for his Z-saber, which is a small handle like device that can form an energy blade, he said "Believe me, we're still having a hard time believing it ourselves."

He pulled the device off of his back, brought it to his front, and activated the blade. It shined a bright green and made an odd buzzing noise. As he was doing this, he walked towards the monster and watched it struggle to regain its composure. He peaked out of the corner of his eye to see that X's armor color scheme returned to normal.

Zero stopped walking and said "Well come on monster, you wanna try to absorb my blade? It has enough power to feed you for a while."

The monster thought about what Zero said for a few seconds and decided not to trust him so easily. It picked up a pick-up truck and threw it at Zero at full force. Zero immediately deactivated the blade and reattached it to his back. At the very moment he was able to bring his hand back to the front of his body, he was forced to catch the truck with his hands. As the force of the moving truck caused him to slide backwards, he raised his hands in the air and let the truck fall behind his back. The truck received as minimal damage as possible.

As soon as the truck touched the ground, Zero was already in the process of running after the monster and drawing his sword once again. As soon as he activated the blade, he leaned forward and activated the boosters under his feet causing him to dash forward at many times his running speed. Like X, he also decided to begin absorbing large amounts of energy from the surrounding environment. The monster thought it would be a good idea to jump straight upward at the moment Zero got within five feet of itself. He did just that.

Zero immediately stopped directly under it and let his blade absorb all of the energy he collected. The blade turned from its usual green color to a bright orange color with hot flame surrounding it. He stood his ground and started swinging his sword upwards at different angles very rapidly. Each time he swung, some of the blade would break off and move upwards through the air. Many smaller burning blades crashed into the underside of the monster. Zero kept up this pace until the monster glowed a bright orange.

"Now; get ready X," Zero yelled.

"Right," X responded.

X's color scheme this time changed to sky blue and yellow. He began charging absorbing large amounts of energy from the environment once again.

Zero used his boosters to jump high into the air. As soon as he came in contact with the monster, he slashed upwards through its front. Immediately, Zero used his boosters to push himself away from the monster and watched as the monster's liquid body exploded into hundreds of small pieces leaving the core vulnerable.

While pointing his X-buster at the core, X waited for just the right moment to fire. Before the small pieces of the monster's body landed on anything, the core began pulling its liquid body back together. X fired his weapon at the core. It appeared to be a large glowing ball of ice with a vapor trail behind it. The ball made contact with the core just before any of its body did. Its body made it back together again just in time for the ice ball to explode. The core and the body froze from the inside out.

Zero and the monster landed on the ground at roughly the same time. Zero's landing was quite smooth, but the monster had no control over how it was going to land, so it was actually more like a crash. Upon impact, its body shattered into many small pieces once again, only this time the monster couldn't pull itself back together again.

For about twenty seconds, everyone stared at either X, Zero, or the monster speechlessly. The humans stared at X and Zero in awe. Jenny stared in awe, but also in frustration and envy. She felt helpless during this mission. She couldn't think of a way to defeat this monster, but they figured it out in such a short time.

Finally, X walked over to the monster's core and picked it up with his left hand. The core was only a little larger than a baseball. To keep it frozen, X concentrated a steady flow of cold energy into his hand.

"Zero; we need to find a way to keep the core on ice until a better container can be found. We can't run the risk of letting it thaw before then," X said.

"Actually, we know someone who can keep it contained. As soon as they arrive, we can take it from there. That monster is under our jurisdiction after all," one of the officers said.

"Right. So how long will it take for these people to get here anyway?" Zero asked.

"That's the bad news. They won't be here for another two hours," the officer explained.

"So I'm going to have to hold onto this thing for that long, huh? Well, it's far better than letting it reform and start attacking people again," X said.

By this time, Jenny had just landed.

She walked up to X and said "I have to admit it; I completely underestimated you two. I had no idea you guys were capable of so much. I had no real idea of how to beat that thing, so I could only sit back and watch. If I had known it was that easy, I would've found a way to freeze it myself."

"You don't have to worry about it so much. You've proven yourself many times before already. It's not like this one incident is going to completely destroy your reputation," Another officer said.

"Thanks for that," Jenny said.

"But I can definitely say that you guys definitely proved yourselves quite nicely. We've seen Jenny pull of some pretty nice moves before, but your moves seemed as though you planned the whole thing. Each movement was calculated just right and you two seemed so well coordinated with each other," the officer said.

"Well, X and me, we've trained and fought together for decades now. From what we know, Jenny doesn't get the chance to fight alongside anyone very often, so she's had to rely on her own judgment most of the time. I'm sure she fights well on her own, and from what others have told us, we fight pretty well on our own too. It's when we're together that we're most efficient. Two cooperating heads are generally better than one," Zero explained.

"Emphasis on cooperating. Commander Signas would remind us of that pretty often. Being labeled an S-class hunter, even I tend to get a little cocky sometimes," X said.

"That's good that you two realize the value of proper teamwork. But on to the more pressing matter at hand. I'm almost certain this event was filmed by somebody hiding in a bush or something. It'll soon reach the media, and when people start seeing the footage on the news…they're most definitely going to want some answers. I hope all three of you are ready to explain yourselves to the public because it'll most likely be a long one," another officer said.

"And here I was worried about how long I was going to have to hold on to this core. Well…I guess our secret has been kept long enough. I can't wait to get this over with," X said.

* * *

It took her a while, but she did manage to find another place to settle down in. Vexus found an abandoned factory building to live in. By this time, she had been living there for about two and a half months. It still wasn't the most pleasant place to live in, but it was a huge improvement from the small barn she was living in before. This building was about three times the size of the barn in width. It only had one story unlike the two story barn, but the size of the new building more than made up for the lack of stories.

She managed to finally find enough items to replace the items lost in her fight with Smytus and Krackus. She even managed to find a fairly decent color television, and as far as her cable service is concerned, she managed to work out a deal with an illegal cable provider. Jenny has no idea where Vexus is anymore, so she can't really get her for the illegal cable.

She decided to watch a little television today, so she sat down on her chair and picked up the remote. Before turning the TV on, she looked over at her pet Hugo for a moment and pondered exactly how long that species of beetle's life span is. She then decided she would worry about that later. She turned on the TV and saw a cooking show first. She didn't eat human food, so she had absolutely no interest in that show. When she flipped to the next channel, there played a commercial about the dangers of smoking.

"Silly humans and their ridiculous addictions," Vexus said.

The next channel played a show about how police capture small-time criminals.

"I hated this show ever since I heard about it. In real life, the good guys don't always win. I bet they'd lose ratings if they showed the cases where the criminals actually get away with their crimes," Vexus commented.

The next channel played an infomercial about pet grooming products.

"They waste incredible amounts of money on stupid shit like that. That's one reason why their economies keep going into recession from time to time," Vexus commented.

The next channel was the most interesting one of all. In fact, it was one that would definitely peak her interests. Anytime Jenny was involved in something, it almost always proved to be interesting to her. A man's voice played while video footage played.

"What you are seeing in this video took place two days ago. XJ9 arrived on the scene of a monster attack at a power plant in Tremorton. At first, it seemed as though she would defeat the monster as usual, but something totally unexpected happened. A stranger showed up out of the blue, no pun intended, to help defeat the monster. As to where this stranger actually came from is yet to be determined for sure. All we know for sure is that he's a blue cyborg of some kind with amazing fighting capabilities that could very well rival XJ9's, and that he goes by the name Megaman X, but normally just X. With this surprising display of raw power, he surrounded his body in flame and crashed into the monster like a meteor sending him flying. After he confirmed that he knew for sure how to defeat the monster, there showed up yet another surprise. Rather than I try to explain to you, we decided to let you see it for yourselves for a little while," the man said.

Vexus's eyes widened when she saw the tall red reploid for the first time.

"Who is that man? I kind of liked that first one, but this one is different. Let's see what you're capable of," Vexus said with a wide grin.

She continued watching as he performed very skillfully moves that she's never seen before. She could tell by their moves alone that neither of them were Wakeman robots. The technology required for some of their weapons were too advanced for Ms. Wakeman to have made them. When all of the fighting was finally over, the man's voice played again.

"The mysterious red cyborg you just saw goes by the name Zero. They both claim to be partners. Tomorrow night, X and Zero will stand before the public to answer our many questions. The biggest questions of course are what is XJ9's relation to them and why hasn't she revealed them to us until now? That is all for this story…" was the last thing Vexus heard the man say before she turned off the television.

"This is all very interesting. You had better have a very good explanation for your people if you plan to maintain their trust. I'd like to find out where they came from myself. But what I'd really like is if I can somehow find a way to get to know that Zero a little better. I admit I haven't quite felt this way about a man in ages. Hugo, if all goes well, you may have more than just my company every day," Vexus said with a giddy grin on her face.


	10. Chapter 10

The next day, after school, Jenny was sitting at the dining room table. Sitting across from her was X.

"I'm sorry that we caused you to have such a stressful day at school," X said.

"Everyday, for the past several months, has been a very stressful day. It's not that I don't appreciate the extra help you guys can offer; it's just that every time a new person enters my life, a ton and a half of extra stress gets piled on top of me," Jenny said.

"Well, not to be mean or anything, but the same goes for everyone. Zero's my best friend, and I'm willing to put my life on the line for him every day, but he sometimes gives me more stress than Sigma," X said.

"Really? You guys talk about Sigma as if he's evil incarnate," Jenny said.

"To be honest, I don't really think I'll ever fully understand the definition of evil, but that's beside that point. Zero was created to be what people call evil. Hold on, before you jump to any conclusions, realize that Zero is not that way anymore. When I first met him, he was the way he is now. It wasn't until much later that I found out that he actually has multiple personalities. The 'evil' personality that he was designed with is currently inactive and will likely remain that way. It surfaced once before and I had to fight him in order to stop him from throwing the world into chaos. His power is out of this world. The power you've seen him display is nothing compared to the power that his original personality is capable of. Apparently, during the time that he was stored away for those hundred years, he managed to develop a much friendlier personality on his own. We're pretty certain this change was not part of Wily's intentions. Unfortunately, the one thing about his original personality that he still possesses is his hotheadedness. That's often what causes him to end up in the condition he was in when you met him," X explained.

Jenny looked down at the table and said "What the hell do I think I'm doing? I've been trying to find a way to reprimand and place the blame on you guys just to make myself feel better about this. I should never criticize someone who's been to war more times than I have unless they started it. I'm sorry about this. I hate myself sometimes for some of the methods I use to deal with my problems."

X took a deep breath and said "Being reprimanded and having the blame placed on us is something we're still growing accustomed to. There are so many people out there that feel as though life is too hard to even think about placing blame on themselves. I blame myself for a lot of my problems, but some people tell me all the time that it's not my fault. And then there's the problem of it being a part of the nature of intelligent beings to automatically assume the worst about everything, because in truth, people are basically afraid of each other. I know I'm just venting, but the thing is, I'm not mad it you at all. Both me and Zero already expect this kind of thing wherever we go."

"Thanks for accepting my apology. It was really difficult to keep everyone at school calm," Jenny said.

Her expression changed for a moment accompanied by a moment of silence.

X noticed this and asked "Is there something wrong Jenny."

"Actually there is. I think I now understand where most of my frustration came from today. Sure dealing with the student body as whole was stressful, but…the one thing I noticed throughout the entire day that stood out the most is that there were two students that I did not see at all," Jenny said.

"Only two students? Why would they be a problem?" X asked.

"They aren't ordinary people. I often sense they have the potential to ruin somebody's life in ways that most people are incapable of; and not necessarily through the use of special powers or anything like that, but mostly through the use of their powerful wit. One student is a boy named Jason, and the other is a girl named Grace. Jason's approach is a bit more direct. He obviously sits on the sidelines and observes how everyone else behaves. If you cross him or rub him the wrong way, he'll find a way to expose the worst sides of your personality to everyone else. He can even find ways to instigate fights between his enemies so he can watch them get themselves beat up without ever lifting a finger. I don't know how well he can fight physically because I've never seen it happen. Grace on the other had is different. It took me a while to realize it, but she realizes that people around her only assume that she's much frailer than she is, and she'll use that to her advantage. She'll let you know her strength a little at a time, and once you know it, she'll constantly remind you of it and use that to put fear in your heart. She's not mean or cruel or anything. In fact, she's quite the opposite. She only does it if she feels as though something you're doing is wrong. I still find it amazing that that skinny little girl was able to knock me down with one punch. The mere fact that I didn't see either of them today must be because they're waiting for an opportunity to talk to me privately. It's like I'm in the eye of a storm until then," Jenny explained.

"That's interesting. Even I know that the few people who don't live within the mold of society are generally the scariest ones. Are you trying to tell me that you're actually afraid of two humans?" X asked.

"I didn't want to admit it at first, but I am," Jenny said while staring X directly in the eyes.

"Wow, I can tell you're sincere with that look on your face. I used to think that humans couldn't seriously frighten me either, but I was proven wrong a while ago too. Though Mavericks are pretty much our world's greatest threat, there is a small group of humans that are well trained mercenaries. Zero and I have tried several times to apprehend them, but not one member of their group has been successfully caught. In my personal opinion, I think they may just have what it takes to cause more chaos than Mavericks. They just haven't managed to give us enough evidence of that yet," X said.

"That's interesting, but I can't really say that Grace or Jason have that kind of potential on their own. However, I do know that history has taught us that the least likely people have sometimes done more damage than the most likely," Jenny said.

"You've actually managed to peak my curiosity though. I would really like to meet these two people some day. I know we're not trusted that well yet though. Why are you looking at me like that," X asked nervously.

"This is the closest expression I can make to match Grace's expression when she first saw me in person. She seems to be terrified of robots for some reason," Jenny replied.

"Okay then. I guess I'll just have to be very careful not to frighten her," X said.

Suddenly, X's transmitter activated with a beeping sound.

"Looks like someone from your government needs to talk to us," X said before pushing the button on the side of his helmet.

A voice from inside X's helmet said "Is this Megaman X?"

"Yes, this is him," X responded.

"As soon as possible, we need you, your partner, and XJ9 to report the site mentioned in an earlier briefing. This is an emergency. We cannot afford further delay. That is all," the voice said.

"Understood! We'll be there in thirty minutes," X said.

* * *

The site mentioned was no larger than an ordinary corner store. Its outward appearance was no more suspicious looking than one either. This was done on purpose to conceal its location.

"So commander Miles, what's the important news?" Jenny asked.

"If you would look at this monitor, you'll see what the problem is. I get the feeling X and Zero here will figure it out faster than you would Ms. Wakeman," Miles said.

As soon as the monitor turned on, it revealed the conversation between the French military personnel and a large dark colored reploid.

"You've gotta be kidding me! High-Max has been revived? I imagine none of you know how terribly powerful High-Max really is, otherwise you would've told us about this sooner. The time of that recording was about three days ago. But wait, if this was three days ago, why hasn't he arrived here yet?" X asked.

"That's what I'd like to know," Zero said.

"Well, it turns out that some of the other reploids that came through the other portals managed to either capture him or talk him into following them for the time being before he got here. I take it this High-Max guy is a problem," Miles replied.

"A very big problem. Last time, he was programmed to destroy me and was told that the reason was because I was a nightmare that would destroy the Earth. The bad part about it is that he'll destroy everything in his path just to get to me if he feels it necessary," Zero explained.

"I think this might be a repeat Ms. Wakeman," Miles said.

"A repeat?" X asked.

"If what you said is true, then High-Max is just like Armagedroid. Before my mom built my sisters and me, she built Armagedroid to defend Earth against the aliens in the first intergalactic war. He drove them away, but he was too determined to destroy all weapons on Earth and anyone else that stood in his way. I managed to finally destroy him, but I almost died in the process. I'm just hoping High-Max isn't as powerful as Armagedroid," Jenny explained.

"Armagedroid, huh? That's one hell of a name. Where exactly did your mom get the inspiration for that name?" Zero asked.

"I don't have the slightest clue. You might wanna ask her about that," Jenny replied.

"His mission was to protect Earth. If Armagedroid were to try to destroy the world, could he have done it alone?" X asked.

"Probably. It would take him quite a while to do it, but I imagine he could've if he had tried," Jenny answered.

"Well…I can't say High-Max is quite that powerful, but he is quite capable of causing a lot of destruction. He is not to be taken lightly or underestimated at all," X explained.

"Since you two seem to be the experts on this, how should we go about handling the situation?" Miles asked.

"Hmm…the problem with anything Sigma related is that nothing can ever usually be done until he shows himself either in person or through his activities. He's very elusive when he's quite. You can be sure that he'll show himself soon enough. He always does. He definitely loves to challenge people. Unless you can find him through investigation, which is unlikely, you'll just have to wait until he makes the first move," Zero explained.

"It figures. Another damned smart villain," Jenny said irritated.


	11. Chapter 11

It was the middle of the night, 3:14 am. Grace lay in her bed asleep. Normally, her slumber was quite peaceful. However, on occasion she would have very restless sleep. To make matters worse, within the past seven weeks, her restless slumbers have become increasingly more frequent than they ever have been for as long as she could remember. This night just happened to be one of those nights.

She kept thrashing about in short bursts. She would also breathe and sweat heavily. Her heart would also pound and her muscles would tense up periodically. She would often let out low volume yells and she would groan from time to time.

Two more hours passed until she finally woke up. With eyes wide open and right hand over her heart, she sat straight up for about twenty minutes breathing heavily until her body's composure returned somewhat.

"If…this is supposed…to…be…a dream, then why do…I keep seeing…and hearing…the same figure talking…to me? Why is it…that I can never…remember what it says to me?" She asked herself.

* * *

Later that day, in a large underground complex in a remote area in Siberia, a large bald reploid sat in a rotating chair with his solid green eyes fixed on a large computer monitor. After studying it for more than an hour, he finally turned his chair around to face some of his subordinates.

"Are you pleased with the information we found lord Sigma?" A skinny green male reploid that looked a lot like a chameleon asked.

"Yes, I am very pleased indeed. This version of Earth has a rich and interesting history much like our own. Good work Sting Chameleon," Sigma replied.

"Thank you sir," S. Chameleon said.

"Though it's true that we can use whatever information we can to our advantage, we still have obstacles to overcome. We not only have those two Maverick Hunters to deal with, but we now also have to deal with that global defender that they teamed up with. Her impressive display a few months ago should not be taken lightly," Another male reploid with the head of what looked like a rooster with flame coming out of the top of his head said.

"Yes, that's true Burn Rooster. You should remember one thing though. That girl has serious emotional issues for us to exploit. I doubt she'll be much of a problem if we find a way to break her emotionally. The same goes for her eight sisters. Well, seven of them at least. That large one doesn't seem to have much of a personality to begin with. In any case, we have plenty of time to develop a working strategy. We haven't exactly developed a way to return home yet, so there's not really much need to rush. I see that this planet has much to offer for our purposes and I don't plan to let that potential go to waste. I've always thought about trying to discover ways to expand our reploid empire to other planets, but the only planets within our reach are useless lifeless rocks or gas giants. Then the thing we least expected to happen happened. We ended up in an alternate dimension on a different version of our own planet. The level of potential went straight through the roof after that," Sigma explained followed by a grin.

"There really isn't much to worry about Burn Rooster. I'm well aware that we haven't had much luck disposing of that pair of ancient Maverick Hunters in the past, but things are different now. Sigma has a totally new approach to dealing with them that I'm sure will put your mind at ease once you hear him out," a large panda-shaped reploid named Bamboo Pandamonium said.

That let everyone in the room know Sigma was finally ready to reveal his plan. He had only revealed it to a few others before hand, but now he was ready to let them all know. They all faced Sigma fully attentive.

Sigma paused for a moment to make sure everyone was ready listen, and then said" All right everyone, my new plan goes a little something like this…"


	12. Chapter 12

One day, Vexus was outside practicing many acrobatic maneuvers so she won't loose her edge. There was a large wide open area outside the warehouse that looked as if it was most likely a parking lot. That's where she would practice at.

After practicing for over an hour, she eventually found herself zoned out in her own thoughts rather than focusing on her training. She was still performing her maneuvers, but if there were any spectators, they would be able to plainly see that she was only going through the motions.

It wasn't long before she couldn't take the stress of what was on her mind. That's when she stopped and stood in one spot staring into the distance. About a minute later, she knelt down, started hugging her knees, and buried her face into them. Slowly, she began doing what she hadn't done in over a thousand years. She began to cry.

She could no longer stand her loneliness. She never once experienced loneliness on this level in her life. She allowed herself to believe that she was more than capable of sustaining herself, but she slowly but surely realized…

"I think…it's impossible," Vexus said followed by a deep loud weeping.

She couldn't even remember the feeling of crying this way very well because it had been so long. Eventually, she calmed down some and stood back up. She was heading for the front door, and as she turned the corner, she saw a familiar face.

The person was none other than Charlotte. At the moment, Vexus wasn't really concerned with wondering how she managed to find her, even though she probably should've been. Charlotte looked back at her shocked to see Vexus leaning forward, knees bent, arms dangling, and tears running down her face. Unlike Jenny, Vexus was designed to be able to cry like humans do, tears and all.

"Are…you…okay," Charlotte asked nervously.

Slowly, Vexus walked over to her. Nervously, Charlotte slowly took a couple of steps back. Vexus lunged at Charlotte and hugged her. She would've panicked, but Vexus began weeping again. She didn't know what to say.

"I'm so…glad to…see you again," Vexus said as she continued crying.

A few seconds later, Charlottle said with a slight tremble in her voice "So that's why? I knew…you must've been lonely, but I didn't know just how much."

Without giving it much thought, she hugged Vexus back. Vexus then hugged her a little tighter, but was careful not to hurt her. A few moments later, Vexus began trying her best to calm down and regain her composure. She knew that this was probably a bit much for Charlotte, so she slowly let go of her and tried to wipe the tears from her eyes.

"This…isn't doing me much good. I need a rag…of some kind," Vexus said as she was realizing that her metal skin was making it too difficult to wipe away her tears.

"I ah…left my bag on the ground over there. I can get a rag for you," Charlotte said.

She ran over to the bag, and Vexus began walking behind her. When she got it out of the bag, Charlotte stood up and held it out. When Vexus arrived, she took the rag and wiped the tears off.

When she finished, she said "Thank you for that. Listen…if you want, you can come in and sit down for a while. I don't exactly have food though. I know you must've had to travel for quite a while to get here is why I mentioned that.

"I have more than enough in that bag. I looked for you for quite a while now. I knew you probably needed some company, but your situation…I know you had to hide yourself. Good hiding spot by the way. I thought it was pretty impressive what you did when I finally realized why I couldn't find that old dirt road. You don't need to worry. I won't tell anybody, and…ah…there aren't many people in the world today that even know this place ever existed. I was surprised when I even managed to discover a map old enough to have this place listed on it. I figured you would have to try extra hard to hide, so that's the only reason I thought of looking for old maps. But sure, I'll go inside with you. I was hoping for this anyway," Charlotte said with nervousness still left in her voice.

"You don't have to worry. You're the last person I would want to hurt. I've been waiting to see you again for the longest time. It seemed like it's been so long since we first met. Well anyway…come on in," Vexus said as she opened the front door.

As they walked in, Vexus felt a sense of genuine excitement, one she hadn't felt in a long time.


	13. Chapter 13

As far as the government allowing X and Zero to walk around outdoors in public settings freely was concerned, certain conditions were placed on their privilege to do so. In an earlier meeting with the world powers, Zero told them of the first law of robotics in their home world. The first law of robotics states "A robot must never harm a human being." In Jenny's world, they also have basically the same law, but the law is worded differently. Both X and Zero stressed that they plan to follow that law to the very end if possible, and they would only break that law if absolutely necessary.

The primary conditions for allowing them to roam freely, or even just to live in their society at all, were as follows. First: if they should ever harm a human being, the situation will be thoroughly assessed, and the public along with the Supreme Court will review the information and form an opinion on how to deal them. Second: they must continue to help with finding a way to eliminate the Sigma threat since they admitted to being partly responsible for Sigma's arrival even if it wasn't intentional. The third condition was labeled optional. It basically stated that they have to the option to help Jenny with her usual global defending duties: the one's that she had before they showed up. Both Jenny and the Maverick Hunters vowed to help each other with those duties whenever possible.

Needless to say, but there were plenty of people who didn't think that the conditions were strict enough. Many didn't want them around at all, but only agreed because X and Zero apparently knew what they were doing when it came to fighting Sigma.

* * *

All of Tremorton High's student body and faculty were informed that X and Zero would be coming to visit their school escorted by Jenny. The purpose was to help X and Zero become familiarized with their society, one step at a time, and to try to help eliminate as many negative anxieties the citizens have toward them as possible.

Of course, many people including Jenny, didn't totally trust them just yet, so she decided to stay close by them just in case. She wasn't confident that they might do anything bad, but she decided to stay close to them anyway.

As soon as they arrived at the school campus, they were greeted by a mixture of nervous and excited looks. Many mumbles could be heard from the crowd of people as well.

Wasting no time at all, the principal made his way through the crowd and stood in front of the trio.

"First, I think I should introduce myself. I'm the head of this school, Principle Razinski. There's no need for you two young men to introduce yourselves because at least most know your names already…Why are you looking at me that way?" Razinksi asked.

"I'm sorry sir, it's just…both of us are about three and a half times your age," Zero replied.

"What?" Razinski asked surprised.

"The first hundred or so years of our lives, we were both inactive and sealed away from the rest of our world. We may look young, but that's because we don't physically age the way humans do," X explained.

Razinski paused for a moment, and then said "Okay, I guess I can sort of understand where you're coming from with that explanation. All that aside for the moment, I want you to know that we will welcome you here under the condition that neither of you cause any trouble. If you think I'm being harsh, ask Ms. Wakeman there to explain to you the kinds of things that happened when she started attending this school. It wasn't exactly a pleasant start, believe me. I feel somewhat confident, however, that you two have had a lot of experience developing proper social skills judging by your demeanors. And as for you, Ms. Wakeman, I expect you to take responsible action in case anything goes wrong."

"Of course sir. I'll take care of it if need be," Jenny said.

"Listen everybody. I generally don't speak out on this issue anymore because I've already done it a thousand times before. Both X and I understand your concerns well enough. Those scared faces you're making right now are not new to us. Even though reploids have existed in our world as long as they have, there are still many humans there who become frightened at the mere sight of us. I'm sure you all know the concept of not being able to tell whether or not someone is friend or foe until you go out of your way to make sure. Reploids, no, robots peroid are the same way. We can't tell just by looking either. The difference between robots and humans aside for a moment, humans are often afraid of their own kind just like we are," Zero explained.

"I'm scared of you sometimes, Zero," X said with a grin.

"That comment really wasn't necessary, man," Zero said.

"It was only a joke," X said.

A male student from the crowd spoke up saying "Not to say that you don't have a valid point…it's just that…it's much easier for you to say something like that when you're about a thousand times stronger than humans are."

"That comment isn't new either. I understand it's kind of like taking your chances with a large unpredictable wild animal, and I understand that this is all a matter of trust. I also know that trust must be earned. We didn't exactly expect you to trust us before we came here today. My biggest goal in life is to find a way for humans and reploids to live in peaceful coexistence. I've come to the painful realization that that goal is a long way off a long time ago, but for the time being, I promise to do everything in power to earn your trust," X said with a straightforward confident expression and tone.

"I also promise to work hard to earn your trust," Zero said.

"And what if you two should do something to destroy that trust?" Jenny asked.

"Depending on the situation, you should take whatever action is necessary to punish us, even if the punishment is death," X said.

Everyone, including Zero was surprised to hear that statement.

"That's the first time I've heard you say something quite like that. Now that…is one heck of a serious statement," Zero said.

"In that case, I'd say it's worth it to give them a chance. What do you guys think?" Jenny asked the crowd.

A bunch of scattered mumbled yeses, yeps, yeahs, and okays came from the crowd. The one's that still disagreed didn't say much at all.

"Then it's settled. And yes, I will do that if necessary, but I doubt it will come to that. I've known you guys since you got here, and I'm pretty confident that you're sincere. You've yet to give us a reason to believe otherwise. In actuality, I've regrettably done more in my lifetime to make them fear me than you two have. I'm always expecting them to terminate me should I ever cross that final line. I generally don't show that I'm afraid of them, but the truth is, I'm actually very afraid. In my short seven year life, I've discovered that all forms of intelligent life are capable of terrifying things. But there's still hope because I've also discovered that we're also capable of the most beautiful and amazing things as well. I wish for the best. That's all I wish to say on that subject for now because, it can become a little too depressing, and we really don't need that right now. I just hope for a happy day today," Jenny said.

"Well said Ms. Wakeman. I think now would be a good time to get everyone into class because it's getting very close to the homeroom period. All right everyone, it's time to start the day. Report to your homerooms as soon as possible," Razinski commanded.

As everyone turned around and began heading towards the front entrance to the main building, Jenny noticed that Zero was staring at something with a slightly bewildered expression on his face.

"Hey, Zero. Are you all right?" Jenny asked.

Zero snapped out of his trance and said "Oh…yeah, I'm fine."

As the trio walked into the building behind the crowd, Jenny wondered what Zero was staring at.

A moment later, Jenny thought to herself "_I know I'm just assuming things, but I'll ask him to make sure first. It'll have to wait until lunch period though_.

* * *

As everyone made their way to their seats, Grace made a very subtle gesture that caught Jenny's attention. Jenny looked at her face and noticed a very sharp glare. It was to let Jenny know Grace definitely did not approve of letting X and Zero into their school, especially not into their classroom. There was the matter of the fact that two more desks needed to be brought in for them. Grace then turned her gaze away from Jenny and towards the front. Jenny did the same thing.

After glancing around the room for a few seconds, Jenny thought to herself "_She's good. For a girl that generally appears to be slow, she really knows what she's doing when it comes to doing things without being noticed. No one recognized that that even happened. I really don't think you're as slow as everyone else seems to think anymore, Grace. Of course, when I say slow, I'm not talking about book knowledge. Dammit, I shouldn't have to feel so frustrated every time I think about her. This fear I'm feeling; it's not the fear of what people will say if I do anything bad to her; I'm sure of it. I think I just…might actually be…afraid of her. Why_?"

Jenny continued to stare straight forward at the front of the classroom while forcing herself to make as normal an expression as possible. She didn't want to cause any friction for the time being.

Mr. Tier made his way to the front of the front desk and stopped to face the class.

"Before I start today's lesson, I'm going to make a statement or two, and only because most people think it would a good idea. It's not that I don't care about the potential risk, it's just that I don't plan to let this stop me from teaching. It's not my place to deal with a situation of that magnitude. I'm a teacher, and that's what I plan to do: teach. You students are what you are: students. I'm hoping that you will try to remember that so we can move on with our lives despite the current circumstances. That's all I have to say about that. Now, onto today's lesson," Mr. Tier said.

"_Great speech, but I can still tell he doesn't trust us very much at all_," Zero thought to himself as Mr. Tier started speaking again.

"_It's to be expected. We can't exactly expect them to think of us as some kind of saviors or even friends just yet, especially after what they experienced a few months ago. In some ways, I don't think it was a good idea to venture out into the general public just yet. If Jennifer didn't insist that we give it a try, I would've stayed at Ms. Wakeman's house. I can see this is going to take some time_," X thought to himself.

* * *

Virtually everyone could feel the change in the atmosphere of the cafeteria that day. The most noticeable thing was that it was a bit quieter than it normally was. Both X and Zero could almost feel the fact that they were being stared at out of the corners of many people's eyes. Neither of the two made any attempt to acknowledge this fact. They tried their best to make it seem as though they didn't notice.

Brad made his way over to the table where the three robots sat.

As soon as he was situated, X said "So this must your friend…Bradley was it?"

"Just call him Brad. We're not used to calling him Bradley," Jenny replied.

"I'll remember that," X said.

"I hope this doesn't offend, but I still can't get over the fact that both of you are the same shade of blue," Brad said.

Brad's statement made several people, including Jenny and Zero to start giggling.

"Why is that so funny?" X asked.

"It's some of that humor that someone so serious all the time like yourself can't understand," Zero answered.

"It's a good thing Brad made people laugh like that because I was getting ready to open some windows to let out some of the tension in the air," Jason said while still staring at his tray.

Just then, both X and Zero noticed three things happen. They noticed that at the exact same time, everyone else in the room looked at Jason with odd expressions and quieted down dramatically, and the Jenny was looking at him with a very angry expression.

With wide eyes, Zero thought to himself curiously "What…is going on here?"

After a moment of silence from Jason, everyone slowly resumed their usual activities.

When Jenny finished struggling to regain her more calm composure, X asked with a pretty quiet tone "What is it about that guy that made you angry?"

"Made me angry is the wrong question. He makes me angry. I hate the mere fact that he's here. It wouldn't be good for me to explain that here. I'll tell you about it later," Jenny replied.

A male student said out loud "The thing that bothers me as that you would think that they would have government spies nearby monitoring their every move."

"Hell yeah! You make a good point," Tiff said.

"Careful Tiff," Brit warned with a grin before continuing to sip her tea.

"Huh? Whachoo talkin' 'bout?" Tiff asked.

"I can't say for sure if they're watching this school or not, but I can tell you this; if they are, do you really think it's a good idea to keep talking about it? I would just end that line of questioning right now if I were you" One of the teachers warned as he situated himself at a table.

"I couldn't have said it better myself," Jason said.

Once again, Jason got quite a reaction out of everyone. Jenny didn't bother looking this time, instead, most of her joints tensed up for a second.

A moment later, X saw someone looking at him curiously.

"Before you ask, my answer to that is no comment," X said while looking at the student.

"He's working with the government right now, and plus, he's been working with some form of government most of his life as far as we know. Getting an answer like that out of him is like getting the president to tell you who killed JFK. So before you waste anymore of your time, I suggest you drop it," the same teacher said.

"I suppose someone whose ex-military like yourself would say something like that, wouldn't you, Mr. Simmons?" another student said.

"Hey, I might have served in the Army for ten years, but that doesn't even make me qualified enough to be told who killed Kennedy," Mr. Simmons replied.

"Kennedy? You wouldn't happen to be talking about a man named John F. Kennedy, would you?" Zero asked curiously.

Zero received a strange look from everybody.

"You mean you don't know who he is? He was one of the greatest presidents who ever lived. You must've lived under a rock most of your life?" A female student asked.

"It was more like in a capsule than under a rock, and it wasn't most of my life. But what you said is interesting. Kennedy was a president in this world. Who from our world would've ever guessed? If you want to know, in our world, he was the owner of a large multibillion dollar corporation for developing low-cost appliances that would end problems such as people dying from polluted water in Africa and other various major problems that would normally cost poverty stricken people the remainder of their resources to afford. He helped solve a great deal of those problems," Zero explained.

This new information shook many of the students' and staffs' perspectives severely.

A really excited girl spoke up saying quite loudly "I used read books about stuff like that. They used to talk about what someone would do differently if they were the double of someone from another dimension. I never thought I would here about a real-life example. This is like a dream come true to a bookworm like me."

Zero grinned and said "Well I'm glad I could be of service."

"Wow! That's truly amazing. I can hardly imagine him being anything but the president that he was. So he was a great humanitarian in both worlds. I suppose that's the good part about it," Mr. Simmons said.

"Well, according to our history books, he was asked on more than one occasion if he was interested in becoming president by a few random people. He said he had no interest in it, so that fact that he did become president in your world is surprising to us," X explained

"He was targeted for assassination in our world because many corrupt big business owners didn't like the fact that his work threatened to put them out of business, but no one succeeded. I guess your Kennedy wasn't so fortunate. I'm sorry to hear that," Zero said.

"Thank you for your concern. You seem sincere enough. Come on guys, why do some of you still think they're bad guys? If they really are, they've done nothing to fit the profile. Sure, the innocence might be missing from their eyes, but that's because those are the eyes of war vets, not crazed lunatics trying take over the world or hurt people. What's it going to take to get you people to see that their not our enemies?" A male student asked seriously and confidently.

"You seem to see the world in black and white. The world is filled with many colors, and you can't always take everything at face value and sometimes you have to learn to look at things from more than one or two angles. Sometimes I've even forgotten that myself, or rather I've chosen to ignore it. But then the big catastrophe happened and it forced me to remember that whether I liked it or not," Brit said.

She closed her eyes and sat her cup down. She seemed to have a somewhat angry expression on her face.

Brit continued by saying "The point is that people in general, though they know X, Zero, and Jenny aren't evil, they tend to listen to their own selfish desires: the ones that tell them to ignore the actually meaningful truth that's right in front of them and create a truth designed to make sure everything goes their own way."

By this time, her still closed eyes were twitching and her teeth were grinding together.

Shocked by what she was seeing, Tiff asked with great concern "Are you okay, Bri…"

Brit cut her off by saying in a somewhat trembling voice "Please let me finish, Tiff. This is hard enough for me as it is."

The entire room was quiet by this point. None of the people in the room had ever seen Brit this way. Tiff wasn't the only one that was shocked. As Brit took a brief moment to prepare herself, everyone gave her their full undivided attention.

In a still trembling voice, Brit said "History has revealed to us on numerous occasions that whenever people actually get that hero they asked for, they quickly become disappointed that that hero doesn't act totally on their terms. Everyone wants everything to happen on their terms, and since everyone has a set of opinions uniquely their own, it creates conflict. The hero doesn't have to be a human or an army of humans. It can come in the form of an angel or some mythical beast. It can even come in the form of an inanimate object such as a microwave. A great marvel of modern science. People often claim they don't know what they would do without it. They say that, but there are those who also think about their hatred for the fact that they actually have to clean the damn thing from time to time. Inconvenience. A hero is only great if he does the job then leaves. Should he, she, or it decide to stay, then the people actually have to deal with the hero. Another inconvenience."

She opened her eyes, and the anger in her voice increased a lot, and she said "And I hate inconvenience. Before any…of you look at me like I'm a criminal, know that you all hate it too; every single one of you. It's all a matter of degree depending on the person. For me, it's at a high degree. That's one of the reasons I'm the way I am. I wouldn't treat most of you people the way I do if I didn't think that dealing with you on a day to day basis was highly inconvenient. You people think of me the same way because our opinions conflict, so don't try to think you're any better than me."

She lowered her tone, closed her eyes again, and then said in a still trembling voice "It was when Jenny showed up that I realized how strong my hatred for inconvenience was. I spent my life trying to be the center of attention, and all of a sudden, this metal monstrosity steals the spot light from me. That's why I treated her the way I did. Two and a half years of treating her that way because I thought it actually meant something. Then Smytus and Krackus attacked. That event flipped my entire world upside down. I knew that people have been murdered countless times before, but it never really seemed real to me. It wasn't a reality that I had to deal with before. That reality forced itself upon me like a giant tidal wave crashing into me. It made me realize that there were so many people out there that had goals that they would now never be able to obtain because they were dead. And here I was…here I was spending all this time pretending as if my goals were the only ones worth attaining. Then after careful consideration, I realized how utterly pointless my goals were compared to so many others. Most of you have real goals. The only plan I had for life was to look pretty for the camera and to make other people look up to me as if I was actually some kind of important figure. If it weren't for my father having all this money, none of my goals would matter because I wouldn't have the necessary skills to make it in life."

By this time, her voice was trembling heavily and it was much louder. Tears were even beginning to fall from her eyes.

She forced her eyes open and said angrily "When I consider the fact that this world is the way it is today because of the hard work of people that live in much poorer conditions than myself, then I have to ask myself; what the hell am I? Why the hell am I even here? I haven't made one single positive contribution to the betterment of mankind. All I've done is criticize others and tried my best to make them look worthless. I'm the one that's worthless."

She grabbed her right sleeve with her left hand and ripped off the entire thing from the shoulder.

"None of this…none of this means anything at all…because I didn't earn it."

She then proceeded to remove her earrings and dropped them on the floor.

"This shirt or those earrings," she said as she ripped a large hole in the left side of her shirt were her ribs were.

She didn't seem to care that her bra was showing as a result of her actions.

"Nothing I have, even this damned hairstyle means nothing if I never did anything to deserve it," she said.

She then yelled as she ran her hands through her hair wildly with the intent to make it look as messy as possible. When her hands stopped moving, she dropped her elbows on the table and held her head in place and began to sob.

Tiff immediately hugged her, and with a trembling voice of her own, she said "I've never seen you cry before Brit. Stop it…before you make me cry too."

Tiff couldn't hold her tears back anymore. She began to sob as well. Brit served the same purpose for her that Jenny served for Sheldon. Tiff used to cry a lot when she was living in foster care, but after Brit took her away from that place, and she saw how strong Brit seemed to be, that made her vow to try her best never to cry again. She always knew it, that Brit never cried only because her life was so well taken care of that she didn't have a reason to cry. She merely only chose to ignore it and pretend as though Brit was actually strong. So it really shocked Tiff to see that the reason Brit was crying was that she only pretended to be strong until this point. They weren't the only one's crying. Several people were trying hard to hold back their tears as well.

Brit started again by saying "I never thought I'd hear myself…say this…but…I'm sorry. I'm sorry I treated all of you the way I did. None of you ever deserved any of it. Not even Jenny. If anyone in this school deserves what I've been given in my life time, it's Jenny."

At this point, X and Zero realized they had no place in this discussion. They appreciated what she said, but they know so little of the situation that giving their input would probably only hinder the moment.

Jenny stood up and walked over to Brit and said in a trembling voice of her own "Thank you Brit. And you don't even have to ask for it…I forgive you."

Before anyone had time to respond, they all heard a loud thump and a growl at the same time. Everyone's head turned to notice that the sounds came from Grace.

While clenching her fists very tight, and pressing them against the table, Grace yelled "How can you say that, Brit? How do you know what anyone deserves? How?"

Shocked by her question, they didn't know how to respond immediately. Suddenly, Grace grabbed both sides of her head and screamed out in what seemed like pain. She stopped screaming and fell out of her chair onto the floor face first. When she didn't move at all to get back up, everyone stood up and several people ran over to her to see if she was still alive.

A female teacher moved the chair out of the way and rolled Grace over so she would be lying on her back. Everyone who could see her was shocked by what they saw.

"What happened?" Jenny asked as she tried to get closer.

When she finally did, she saw that aside from Grace's bleeding face, her eyes were wide open and trembling violently. She scanned her briefly to see that she didn't necessarily show the appropriate signs of a seizure, and that she was in no apparent danger of swallowing her tongue. She then transformed her right index finger into a flashlight and shined it in her eyes, and confirmed that she was indeed unconscious.

"_As much as I liked the moment me and Brit were having, I have a job to do_?" Jenny thought to herself.

"All right, I need to fly her to the hospital immediately. Clear a path now," Jenny demanded.

Jenny picked Grace up in the safest way she knew how and proceeded to leaving the building. Zero volunteered to follow Jenny while X stays behind to protect the school in case something else goes wrong.

Brit sat back down and put her hands back on her head, while the same question kept passing through her mind repeatedly "_Why did she ask that question_?"

Jason stood in one spot looking at the floor unsure of himself and everything else.

"_First Brit apologizes so suddenly, then Jenny actually forgives her. What the hell is that shit? Why the hell would they do that? The thing that really bugs me is that even after seeing all those dead and dying a few months ago, I didn't get nearly as worked up as I did over seeing Grace pass out like that. What the hell is wrong with me_?" Jason thought to himself.

Not just Brit and Jason, but everyone who either witnessed or was a part of the event was now unsure of a lot of things. Many of their beliefs had been flipped upside down and turned against them forcing them to recognize their own faults that they ignored most of their lives. They were now faced with a difficult question that was staring them right in the face. What goal in life is really worth working for?


	14. Chapter 14

When Jenny and Zero finally arrived at the city hospital, they quickly had Grace rushed to the emergency room. On their way there, Jenny called the school for permission to remain at the hospital just until Grace was confirmed okay or terminal, hopefully not the latter. In actuality, it was only because Zero insisted on it. Jenny only wanted to do the transportation duty. She didn't actually care enough for Grace to have volunteered to stay in the waiting room.

After Jenny and Zero were finally alone, Jenny said "So Zero, why did you want us to wait here so badly anyway? The hospital doctors could've taken care of it."

"To be honest, it's because I'm curious about her," Zero replied.

"I have a question first though. When I asked you earlier today were you all right, would you happen to have been staring at her?" Jenny asked.

"Yes actually. I'm starting to see that you already had that feeling from earlier. I'm also starting to see that she apparently has that affect on most new people," Zero replied.

"I thought so. Yes, she does have that affect on most new people. She's so incredibly out of place: a serious anachronism," Jenny explained.

"Well, the reason I stared at her earlier wasn't only because of the way she looked, but also the way she looked at me," Zero said.

"She was looking at all three of us. You were the only who happened to make direct eye contact with her. She really doesn't like our presence, even more so than most people. She apparently thinks we're evil deep down, or that we're more dangerous than most other people think. She's afraid of us for sure, but she's also not afraid to let us know that she doesn't think we should be here," Jenny explained.

Zero lowered his voice and said "This may sound a little strange to you, but I don't think she's normal at all. I'm not just talking mentally either. I can't put my finger on it, but I feel like there's something she's hiding."

Jenny lowered her voice too and said "You're not the only one. A few months ago, I lost my temper and started beating up that boy from the cafeteria named Jason, the one whose mere presence I hated. The reason is because he played a really big part in intentionally driving me to suicide. That would've been very bad for the planet if I had killed myself. My emotions were a mess at the time, and when I think back on it, I should have thought it through better before hurting him. My point is that Grace came to his defense by running out of the crowd, jumping and punching me in the head. Normally, that wouldn't phase me, but she actually managed to knock me down. Not only that, her hand wasn't even bleeding. As to why falling on the floor today made her bleed, I don't know. But I do know that she's definitely not normal. I recently discovered that both Grace and Jason spent some time alone together while trying to navigate their way out of an old subway system that they had fallen into just before we managed to defeat Smytus and Krackus. I've been wanting to interrogate Jason about that."

"Why not ask Grace?" Zero asked.

"Though I really don't like Jason, I think I would get more information out of him as opposed to her. I can tell she's very secretive as she doesn't talk to other people very much. Also, you might think this sounds crazy, but I think…I'm actually afraid of her," Jenny explained.

"Normally, I would think that sounds a little crazy, but in her case, I don't think your fear is all that irrational. If she did manage to knock you down, she might have a lot more strength than we realize," Zero said.

"I'm definitely going to try to find out sooner or later, but I can't act too hastily. I don't want Grace to find out I talked to Jason about this," Jenny said.

"Also, I'll let you in on something. I'm under the impression that it took you a while to convince yourself that she's not as stupid as she seems. Well, I could tell after seeing her for the first time that she's definitely hiding something. She's not stupid at all. In fact, she probably has one of the highest I.Q.s in the school. I know these kinds of things from experience. Me and X are not only known for our fighting ability, we're also known for our ability to read people's mannerisms to see if they are lying or not. She definitely has 'I'm hiding something' written all over her face," Zero explained.

"I see. I'll definitely keep that in mind," Jenny said.

* * *

Grace found herself floating in a sea of solid red. There was no beginning or end in sight. Then she realized that she didn't feel as though she were floating in a liquid at all. It felt the way she imagined astronauts felt as they floated stationary in outer space. She'd never felt such a high level of sensory deprivation before. It was one of the most amazing feelings she'd felt in her life. A few moments later, she realized just how strange it was to actually be in such a place.

"Yes. I must…be dreaming," she said in a soft tone.

Slowly, she felt her body descend. She didn't feel a gravitational pull necessarily, but she could tell she was descending. After a few minutes or so, the red quickly began turning a dark shade of green. She knew something dramatic was about to happen, she braced herself for something sudden. She was definitely right. She felt a sudden surge of gravity from below. A few seconds later, she hit a solid surface on her hands and knees that she couldn't distinguish from the rest of the green. A second later, she felt soft grassy ground beneath her. Then she was finally able to see the grass. Soon the world around her materialized and she was finally able to see where she was. She was in the middle of what seemed like a jungle in the middle of the day.

"_This is…a dream, isn't it? It feels so real_," She thought to herself.

She looked around until she saw a dirt path, that she assumed was man-made, and that it would lead to someplace meaningful. She didn't know what to expect, so she made sure to make every movement as careful as possible.

After walking along the path for what seemed like an hour, she saw what looked like a small village through the trees. When she was finally able to see the village clearly, she saw several people standing around a stack of hay with a small dead child lying on top of it. The people hung their heads and whispered a prayer.

When they were done praying, the eldest man of the village said "This was not the wrath of god that caused this child to be murdered. Instead, this was the influence of the king of evil. Our village has endured several outsider battles that passed through here. We've managed to protect everyone every other time…until now. Only the evil king would persist in trying to have a small child be caught in the middle of such a battle. Perhaps it is time we move our people to a new safer location and build a home there. If we stay, we will eventually be wiped out. I am sorry my brothers and sisters, but we have no choice. Let us prepare ourselves for the journey ahead of us."

As soon as the villagers separated to pack their belongings, Grace felt as if she should say something to them. As soon as she opened her mouth, the world around her once again became a sea of red. This time, she was still standing on an invisible surface. A few seconds later, the red became a dark blue color. Then there was a lot of background noise that sounded like cheering.

When she finally saw the new world materialize, she was in the middle of a crowd of people cheering for a man on stage. It turns out he was a singer. The singer looked as if he didn't have a care in the world. Nothing seemed to be troubling his mind in the slightest. It was as if he never experienced suffering at all. He smiled and took a bow.

She felt the urge to say something again, but the world again became red. She had begun to notice the repeating pattern and decided to remain as calm as possible and watch each event unfold. As soon as she was able to see a distinguishable set of surroundings again, she was a little surprised to see what was in front of her.

"_A king and a throne room. Medieval_?" she thought to herself.

She then realized that the room was full of many different people, mostly nights and nobles. It wasn't all that surprising to her that they didn't notice her presence.

One of the nights ran forward and knelt down in front of the king.

"Your highness, I have never been one to question your judgment, and I do not intend to start now. I am only here on behalf of the 8th battalion to relay a question that has been troubling them," The knight said.

"You may proceed," The king said.

"The question is 'why haven't the reinforcements and supplies that you granted us arrived yet?' Again, this is not my question at all" The knight said.

Suddenly, Grace could no longer hear what was being said. She saw the king respond in what seemed like a lengthy explanation. Careful not to say anything and not to come in physical contact with the others, she ran over to the knight's side and knelt down to see the reaction on his face more clearly. His expression was of shock and anger. As soon the knight stood, he bid the king farewell and left the castle.

The world around Grace suddenly shifted from the castle to the inside of a large tent. It was the middle of the night but the interior of the tent was adequately lit. She saw the knight from earlier sit down at the table to explain what happened at the castle.

"What news do you have to report to us Nathan?" The man who appeared to be the general asked the knight.

"I'm sure you can tell by the look on my face that the news is not good. Our king basically found a nicer way of telling me that he has abandoned us," Nathan replied.

Suddenly, the other knights including the general reacted in a very frightened manner.

"What? Please tell me you just misunderstood him," one of the other knights begged.

"No…it's no mistake. In a complicated way, he told me that this battalion is costing the kingdom too much money and that the resources we consume are negatively affecting the war effort. I've realized that it goes much deeper than that though. It's true that we have some of the best warriors this army has ever seen, and I think that's the problem. We're too good…and we're too smart. The king is afraid that we will try to rise up and overthrow him once we've realized that we are quite capable," Nathan explained.

"We would never betray our king. You know that just as well as I do," The general said.

"But he doesn't know that," Nathan said.

"And once he's made up his mind on something, it's virtually impossible to convince him otherwise," Another knight said as he rested his elbows on the table and buried his face in his hands.

"He also told me that after I've told you this news, that I should leave you all behind and flee this country never to return. Though the thought of saving myself sounded nice, I've dedicated myself to this battalion for too long to abandon you all. I thought about that on my way here, and then I asked myself why I should think about saving myself. I would not be the least surprised if he has ordered some of his troops to wipe us all out. If this is true…even if it is…I will stand by your sides and fight to the end," Nathan said.

"Well, there it is, I suppose. Honor really doesn't mean anything to him. Unfortunately, I have to believe you on this one. Your explanation sounds too convincing. Tell all of the others to prepare to defend themselves. We likely don't have much time left," The general ordered.

The world around Grace shifted again to an area only about a football field's length away from the camp. The soldiers looked ahead to see many armed soldiers heading in their direction, but there was something amiss.

"These are not our soldiers at all. Those are Caldrin soldiers, from the kingdom we've been fighting against. What is the meaning of this?" The general asked surprised.

"Your king is truly honorless indeed. I am very impressed at the extent to which he is willing to go to destroy one of his own battalions. He paid us quite a hefty sum of gold to get rid of you all" A Caldrin soldier said.

"He must've been truly afraid of us if he's willing to pay the kingdom we're at war with to kill us," The general said.

"Indeed he is. And to think that you all went through so much trouble to become the great battalion that you are. You are no longer convenient to your king so he decided your nothing more than a liability and a threat to his power," The Caldrin soldier explained.

Suddenly, the world shifted again. This time, the battle was raging between the two battalions and it appeared as though the Caldrin soldiers were winning.

The general rode fast on his horse and picked up Nathan who was in the middle of fighting and headed away from the battlefield.

"What are you doing? Why are we abandoning our brothers?" Nathan yelled.

"We're not. I need you to escape this place and find a way to let our people back home know of our king's betrayal. We can't let this happen to any more of our people," The general said.

Before Nathan had time to respond, the general stopped his horse once he realized that the area was surrounded by many hundreds of their own soldiers. It was then that the other soldiers including the ones from Caldrin also noticed this and stopped fighting. Before they had time to ask what was going on, the soldiers surrounding the area opened fire on everyone in the center using cannons, bow and arrows, and rifles recently bought from a neighboring country. Not one of the soldiers from either battalion stood a chance of escape, including the general and Nathan.

After seeing Nathan and the general fall of the horse, the world around Grace shifted again. This time, she was back in the castle. Her rage-filled eyes focused on the king.

This time, only the king and his advisor were in the throne room.

"I must admit. That was a brilliant strategy, your excellency. Not only did you manage to get rid of that pesky 8th battalion, but you also managed to get rid of some of Caldrin's soldiers as well," The advisor said.

"Not to mention the fact that I also took back the gold I gave to that Caldrin battalion in the process. It was brilliant indeed, if I do say so myself. Just remember, keep this incident to yourself from now on," The king said.

"Of course, sir. I do wish to keep my head," The advisor said.

As soon as they began laughing, Grace screamed "Damn you. How could you…do that to your own people?"

As the world around her faded into red again, Grace noticed that she was running in the direction of the king that was no longer visible ready to attack him. She was so furious that she did not even realize that she was trying to attack him until a few seconds after she had started running. She finally slowed down and collapsed to her knees screaming over and over again. She finally stopped screaming after about thirty seconds or so.

With rage still in her heart she continued breathing heavily until she heard an odd faded barely understandable and somewhat feminine voice say something along the lines of "You made a good point today. How can anyone know what anyone deserves?"

Grace looked around everywhere to find the source of the voice, but couldn't.

She then asked "When do you…plan…to show yourself to…me?"

The voice then responded by saying "Every question has an answer of some kind, and I wish to know the answer to that one. I want to know if I can find a way to properly determine what people deserve."

"I want…to know to, but you still haven't…answered my last question. When…do you plan…to show…yourself to me?" Grace asked.

Suddenly, she found herself falling asleep uncontrollably. When she did, the next thing she knew is that she was tied down to a bed of some kind. When she looked around at the small room that she was in, she realized that she was in a hospital.

Besides the restraints, she felt quite uncomfortable knowing that she was lying on a sweat soaked bed with no way to get up. The clock on the wall in front of her revealed that it was still the same day, but that it was now 9:37pm.

After noticing that there was a device with a button in her left hand, she pressed the button. She then just remembered that the device was basically just a way to contact the nurse assigned to her. A few moments later, the door to the room opened and a nurse walked in just as she expected would happen.

"Looks like you're finally awake. You had us scared for a while," The nurse said.

"If…it's not too much…to ask…can you please…undo my restraints. I don't want to…lie in my own sweat anymore," Grace said.

The nurse sighed and began helping Grace with her request.


	15. Chapter 15

The male doctor assigned to Grace was sitting alone in his office and had been evaluating her data for more than two hours and was becoming increasingly frustrated.

"_None of this makes any sense. She has the symptoms for it, but no evidence of what should be causing it. According to these scan feedbacks, she's normal. That has to be impossible. The worst part is that I cannot authorize the use of more powerful equipment without good reason. There's just not enough evidence. Not many people know as much about this as I do, so I guess for now…we'll have to let her go home when she recovers_," He thought to himself.

* * *

Meanwhile, Jenny was at the prison designed to hold extremely powerful villains. She decided to go there alone because she realized that she could get there much faster than her sisters or the Maverick Hunters. She looked at the prison in shock because most of it was in ruin.

"Tell me someone. What happened here" Jenny asked.

One of the prison guards ran over to Jenny and said "It was some of those reploid guys. They stormed in and kidnapped a bunch of them."

"A bunch of them, you say? Can you give me a list of who was kidnapped?" Jenny requested.

Someone else ran over to Jenny and handed her the list they had recently compiled. She copied the list into her hard drive and quickly came to a conclusion after reading it.

"Well, that's two pieces of evidence that Mavericks are here, but that still doesn't prove that Sigma is definitely here. There is one thing for certain though. They've decided to make their move," Jenny said.

"So…what now?" The guard asked.

"The way you asked that question reveals to me that you already know the answer, but you're hoping that you're not right. Unfortunately, you are right. It's time to prepare for another war," Jenny replied.

Several people in the area either sighed or moaned in disappointment.

Jenny then sighed herself, and then said in a sad tone "I understand if you humans blame us robots for your suffering. I can't really deny it either. All I can say is that I will do what I can to correct that problem, and…that I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

By this time her fists were clenched together and her body was trembling. Everyone who was watching her could see that she was trying hard not to start crying. It wasn't exactly a remedy to their war problem, but it did somewhat help put their mind at ease knowing that she was sincere about her statement.

* * *

About an hour later, at the Wakeman residence, Jenny and the others decided to contact the United States President using Ms. Wakeman's computer.

As soon as the President appeared on the screen, Ms. Wakeman said "Good evening ma'am."

"Ms. Wakeman, it's been far too long. It's good to see you again. The last time we talked was back in the war. We need to catch up at some point, but right now, we need to get down to business. Jennifer Wakeman, let's hear your report," The President said.

"The reason I decided to take a visit to that prison was because I had come to a startling realization only shortly before I decided to go there. That energy absorbing machine's design the Maverick Hunters defeated had the same color scheme as an earlier villain that I defeated a few of years ago. Would you like to guess who that might be?" Jenny asked.

"Color schemes, huh? Okay, when I think about it, the only…you couldn't possibly be talking about Giga-Watt, could you?" The President said.

"That's exactly who I'm talking about. Not only that, but it was absorbing electricity just like he was. I came to the conclusion that Giga-Watt probably slowly absorbed electricity from the air and created that machine. In that sense, it's kind of like his child," Jenny explained.

"If you're right, which it seems you likely are, then the only reason I can see for him creating this '**child**' would be that he used it in an attempt to steal large amounts of energy and when this child made it back to him, Giga-Watt would take that energy from him and use it to escape," The President said.

"That's exactly what I predicted he was trying to do. So I went to the prison to find that child to see if there was I way I could communicate with it. That was when I found out that the child was one of the villains kidnapped on the list. I figured then that they must be trying to recruit these villains," Jenny said.

"And that's when you realized that a war is at least almost certainly eminent?" The President said.

"Exactly," Jenny confirmed.

"Kidnapping criminals from prisons and recruiting them to do their fighting for him: that's definitely Sigma's style," X said.

"Yeah, he's done that on several occasions before. He not only recruits villains, he also often recruits people who were thought to be good and rational. He's has a surprising amount of charisma," Zero added.

"But you're still missing an important detail. Giga-Watt himself was not in the same prison with that creation of his. Giga-Watt is in the much larger prison in Arizona. Wouldn't that be their next target?" The President asked.

"We already guessed that. That's why we sent XJ8 to keep an eye on that area," Ms. Wakeman said.

"XJ8? Why her? No offense, but isn't it very difficult for her to keep a low profile with her size?" The president asked.

"Normally, your concern would be correct. However, I recently invented a new type of cloaking technology along with a few other adjustments to keep her from being noticed by the enemy. It works like this. First, she activates her strength enhancer. Then she activates the cloaking device that allows her to blend in with her surroundings like a chameleon. I figured that this technology would emit large amounts of easily detectible energy, so I devised a way for her to also release a counter energy wave to prevent detection. Even if the detection equipment was pointed directly at her, at most, the amount of detectible energy would be less that an ordinary LED. Sense she also has the new sunlight absorbing technology installed, she can also constantly recharge her battery. Also sense she won't need to absorb large amounts at one time, her solar panels won't melt easily. She's there keeping her eye on the prison as we speak," Ms. Wakeman explained.

"You always do manage to surprise me, Ms. Wakeman. Good thinking. As we speak, we are also deploying agents to that location. Also, we have decided that we are tired of almost always being at the short end of the stick of every major battle, so we've been preparing something very special just for an occasion such as this," The President said.

"So does that mean you're finally finished with that project of yours?" Ms. Wakeman asked with a grin.

"What project?" XJ6 asked.

"You'll all see soon enough. It's almost finished. In the mean time, Ms. Wakeman, I'm hoping that you've finished figuring out a way to incorporate that reploid technology into your daughters, because they're going to need it," The President said.

"Don't worry yourself too much, ma'am. I already finished this morning," Ms. Wakeman said while still grinning.

"Really? So soon? I thought you wouldn't be finished for another few weeks at least," Jenny said.

"I ran into a major breakthrough last night as I figured out where I was going wrong the entire time. After that, it was fairly simple to figure out the rest. I plan to install it into all of you tonight. As far as X and Zero are concerned, I don't know enough about your core design concepts and programming to make any significant improvements to your bodies. Repairing you is one thing, but changing you is a different matter altogether. I could kill you both by accident if I tried it," Ms. Wakeman said.

"That's not the first time we've been told that, so we understand perfectly," Zero said.

"I just hope these '**improvements**' are as useful as they seem. We can't afford for them to reduce our performance," XJ6 said.

"Trust me, I wouldn't install them in you if I didn't think it would help significantly," Ms. Wakeman said.

"If you think it will help, Ms. Wakeman, go ahead and do it. One more thing. This last statement I'm about to make isn't going into the record books, Maverick Hunters, so listen carefully. I'm going against my better judgment to trust you only because the public apparently likes you more than I ever expected they would. I don't personally dislike you, but I don't exactly personally trust you, for good reason. I have yet to see either of you do anything that would jeopardize the safety of our people, but if you hurt us intentionally, I promise you that I will pull every string I can to see you two severely punished. Do I make myself clear?" The President warned.

Both Maverick Hunters said in unison "Crystal."

"Believe me, you haven't told us anything we haven't already been told in our own world. I have no reason not to take your warning seriously. Besides, I know that a few simple explanations and a single seemingly heroic performance isn't exactly going to gain everyone's trust…" X said before being cut off by the sound of static coming from the computer's speakers.

"Who could possibly calling now of all times? This is a private frequency anyway. Sorry about this ma'am. Actually, I'm curious as to who it could be. Patch them through. XJ9? You look like you've just seen a ghost" Ms. Wakeman said.

"Mom! I hear someone…calling…for X…and Zero. I hear them inside my head," Jenny said nervously with her eyes wide open in shock.

"Who?" Zero asked hopefully.

"I'm matching your frequency now XJ9," Ms. Wakeman said as she pressed a few keys on the keyboard.

The speaker picked up the oddest sounding static any of them had ever heard along with a female voice saying "…Hel…..Respond….Anyone pl…se respond."

X's face lit up with joy and he said "That's Alia!"

"….Is tha…..X? Please….ond," Alia said.

"Alia. I'm so glad to hear your voice again," X said.

"Yes! It's him. We…..establi…contact. Ple…..ell me Zero….with you," Alia pleaded.

"Don't worry Alia. I'm here. We're doing just fine. I can't believe you managed to find a way to contact us so soon," Zero said.

With a tearful tone, Alia said "I'm…..glad! I'm…..ad! We…..…..ying….to...ind a way.…..uce a stron…..ignal. We all miss…so much. Just in cas….Sigma is def…itely there with you."

"Well that answers that question," XJ5 said.

"…Who..s that?" Alia asked puzzled.

"For now, let's just say that X and Zero here have agreed to help us try to defeat your enemies while they're here. Also, they haven't stopped talking about how they miss their friends back home since they got here," XJ5 said.

"Whoever you are….anks…telling us that," Alia said.

"How is everyone on your end?" X asked.

"…ey're jus…fine. No, not now. Dammi….." Alia said before the computer monitor read connection lost.

With a big happy grin on his face, X said "I have to admit, I was starting to lose hope. Everyone's okay back home. This is incredible! I'm glad you were able to receive that Signal Jenn…Jenny?" X asked.

Everyone looked at Jenny's face speechless in shock.

A moment later, Ms. Wakeman asked nervously "What's wrong XJ9?"

A few seconds later, Jenny's irises suddenly sharply decreased in size to no larger than a pencil eraser each, and then she said "I…I…I see things. Mom, don't…attempt to disconnect me from it."

"What's going on? What do you see?" The President asked.

"I'm…recording everything," Jenny said grinning as her body began trembling.

Ms. Wakeman immediately began recording the technical information on a smaller laptop so as not to disconnect from the President.

"This is amazing. Jenny is following the stream that the signal is coming from, back to its source," Ms. Wakeman said.

Everyone else in the room was also looking at the laptop's screen.

"Mom. I'm going to attempt to copy the signal's frequency information and coordinates. I would try to call them instead, but my brain might overload from trying to send a signal that far. I only have one shot though," Jenny said.

"Everyone, please let her concentrate," Ms. Wakeman said.

Jenny's antennae started moving around in odd patterns as she attempted to copy the information before the signal completely faded.

A few seconds later, Jenny said "Success!"

"You actually managed that on your first try. You must have some very sophisticated sensors," Zero said.

Jenny's irises returned to normal size, and she then said "I didn't before you arrived. More accurately, before your people started sending weird signals out through the stream about a couple of months ago. My sensors picked up something once or twice, and at the time, I didn't think much of it because I thought it was just interference. On the third time I received a signal, my main sensor told me something about unusual energy patterns and decided to make adjustments to itself, and I allowed it without debate. My body constantly attempts to adapt to new situations and circumstances even though the actual changes are often very subtle. This change was major though. I didn't realize that it needed to adjust as much as it did until about a month ago when I realized it was still adjusting. I didn't think any of this was important enough to talk about until I had that crazy dream with your commander, Signas, in it."

"A couple of months ago, huh? That would mean that Professor Jackson, the man who invented the new teleportation technology, must've sent you a couple of signals hoping for a response that he never got without realizing that anyone ever actually received the signals," Zero explained.

"The signals I got at that time sounded like garbled noise, nothing understandable," Jenny said.

"This is an interesting turn of events. When you finally develop a way to contact them again using more powerful equipment, Ms. Wakeman, be sure to contact me again before you decide to make the call. In the mean time, keep an eye on XJ8's progress. I don't have time right now, but next time, I want you to describe what you saw while following the signal, Jennifer. Until next time…" The President said before terminating the connection.

"Well, that's finally over. I never did like talking with her," Jenny said.

"I never liked that imposing presence of hers either. In any case, I think now is the time to make those improvements, wouldn't you say?" Ms. Wakeman said.


	16. Chapter 16

About ten minutes later, XJ8 detected several machines flying in the direction of the prison. She determined them to be U.S. military jets. She saw them fly past the tallest building for a second before seeing them all explode simultaneously.

She looked to her right to see something that sent waves of fear through her body. It was indeed a reploid, but she never imagined that any of them would look like what she was seeing. Flying through the air was a ten-foot tall reploid that looked like he was part bird. The scary part was the fact that it wasn't just any bird, it was unmistakably a phoenix. He even had a constant stream of flame emitting from his forearms, chest, and head.

The very next thing this ominous reploid did was dive directly into the building that held the prisoners smashing through the ceiling with ease. As soon as XJ8 heard screaming from within the prison, she took off flying away from the prison as fast as she could. That was the first time she could remember ever being quite that scared for her life.

Not taking any chances, she waited until she was several miles away before contacting home, so she wouldn't be detected.

* * *

Ms. Wakeman immediately answered the distress call from XJ8.

"What happened XJ8?" Ms. Wakeman asked nervously.

"I am sorry mother, but I was too afraid to fight him," XJ8 answered.

"Fight whom?" Ms. Wakeman asked.

XJ8 sent the video recording of what she saw to Ms. Wakeman's computer.

After seeing what XJ8 was so afraid of, Ms. Wakeman yelled "What the hell is that?"

"Shit! I can't believe Blaze Heatnix was revived as well. Whatever you do XJ8, stay away from him. Run away as fast as you can before he notices you. You did the right thing by running. You are no match for him," X yelled.

"XJ8! Return home immediately," Ms. Wakeman yelled.

"Yes mother!" XJ8 said.

"Okay, I'm sure by now, the president has been informed," Ms. Wakeman said.

"It's too bad that this installation is gonna take two hours, otherwise I'd be heading out there now. It looks like she's gonna be safe. That's a relief. That monster isn't even paying attention to anything else besides his objective," Jenny said.

"If he had hurt our sister, I'd be trying to kill him right now," XJ6 said.

"Wait! If you've managed to defeat him before, what kind of power do you boys have that could take down a monster like that?" Ms. Wakeman asked.

Zero grinned and said "That would be those abilities we told you about that we only use in major battles because they require so much energy. Don't worry, you'll see them soon enough. Looks like we're going to have no choice but to use them now."

"He's about three feet taller than the last time we fought him. I bet he's tougher than before," X pointed out.

"I just hope these improvements are enough, like I said before," XJ6 said.

"I hope so too," X said.

* * *

About an hour later, Sigma stood in front of many of Jenny's old villains who were currently debating on whether or not to trust him. He didn't exactly look like a trustworthy guy. It's not that they looked trustworthy either; it's just that he looked especially untrustworthy.

"I suppose you're waiting for one of us to say something to you," A toga wearing muscle bound human said.

"Yes, actually. Hercules, was it?" Sigma asked.

"For the last time, it's Himcules," Himcules said with a hint of irritation in his voice.

"You do realize, that until you've made a legend out of yourself, people will always think of the name Hercules first, don't you?" Sigma said.

"Of course I do, that's why I think taking down infamous people like yourself will help me earn the rank of legend," Himcules said.

"Is that how you show gratitude to the man responsible for releasing you from prison?" Sigma asked.

"I suppose not, for now at least. I'm sure you released us because you're trying to offer us something. If the offer is a good one, I might decide to cooperate, even though it isn't my style. The only reason I'm deciding to give you a chance is because no one else has done anything nice for me in my life, so just to let you know, when all of this is over, I still plan on challenging you to a battle," Himcules said firmly.

"Hmm…fair enough. You are correct in the assumption that I'm here to offer you something, and I'm sure it's something you will like. Only, we need only to wait a few moments, because the final guest is about to arrive," Sigma said.

"What guest?" An adequately recharged Giga-Watt asked.

"He's heading here as we speak, and he's almost here? You'll see who it is in a moment," Sigma explained with a grin.

"Whoever it is, he must-a be really special if you are a-grinning like-a that," One of the notorious Hammer Bros. said.

"Patience is a virtue. He should be arriving any second now," Sigma said as his grin grew even wider.

A short moment of silence followed afterwards, then suddenly, a loud crashing sound was heard from somewhere on the ceiling above about thirty feet behind Sigma. Everyone but Sigma was severely startled. As Sigma turned to face the person who caused the crash his grin grew even wider until he couldn't spread the corners of his mouth any further. A loud thud was heard on the floor under the hole on the ceiling.

Suddenly, a familiar but much deeper and ominous version of a voice that they've all heard before was heard yelling angrily "You came here at a bad time for me, Sigma. All that work I put into earning the spotlight as the most feared villain was just about to pay off until you showed up."

Out from the debris, dust, and smoke came charging an eight-feet tall, humanoid, hulking, far more insane and monstrous-looking version of a familiar robot.

"That's Killgore! Everyone, move out of the way!" Giga-Watt yelled with fear in his voice.

The other villains figured Giga-Watt wouldn't be afraid for no good reason, so they did as he said. Sigma on the other hand pulled a small hilt from the left side of his waist with his right hand, activated a beam saber of his own and charged Killgore head-on.

Killgore stopped abruptly about three feet in front of Sigma, pointed the bottoms of his feet at him, and activated his boosters to full thrust. Sigma saw his attempt to burn him with his boosters and activated a force field that deflected his attack. He then sped up and punched Killgore in the chest sending him crashing into the wall a little over a hundred feet behind him.

Sigma followed and stopped landing on his feet about five feet in front of Killgore. He slashed Killgore's legs off close to the pelvis with one swing of his saber. A screaming Killgore attempted to punch Sigma in the legs, but one after the other, he lost both of his arms as well to Sigma's blade. Immediately afterward, Sigma deactivated his saber and returned it to his left hip. The others could only watch in awe.

Killgore screamed angrily and yelled "You scum! How am I supposed to defeat XJ9 now?"

"You couldn't do that at the moment with your loss of limbs. You are defeated!" Sigma said.

"Again. Again I am defeated! It's one thing to be defeated by my own enemies, but being defeated by my enemy's enemy is worse. I spent all that time upgrading my body so I could crush XJ9 with a surprise attack for nothing," Killgore yelled.

"A surprise attack?" A small rodent villain named Vladimir asked in disbelief.

"Curious? It's quite simple. I've spent enough time in seclusion to realize that challenging XJ9 to battle is never going to allow me to win. The only way I could think to win is to use the not very well liked sneak attack method. You might think it takes away from a glorious victory, but I no longer care about that. I wish only to strike fear, and the swift destruction of everyone's favorite hero is a good way to do that," Killgore said.

"I'll tell you a little something I learned in my world. It starts with the fact that believe it or not, I used to be a Maverick Hunter. Surprised? X and Zero didn't mention that fact to the public because they didn't want to spread the concern that they might still feel some loyalty to me since I used to be their commanding officer. As a Hunter, I learned the very necessary value of teamwork. That may sound corny to you because individualism is stressed far too much in this world. It would seem that since Skyway Patrol made so many blunders, your world started to lose faith in the idea of teamwork. What most of you people don't know is that most of Skyway Patrol's members are stupid. It's amazing what I've managed to learn in such a short time when you've been here for years. Successful teamwork requires many factors, but I will explain a few. One, it actually requires that all members have reasonable competence. Two, it requires that each member have a necessary skill or set of skills. Three, it requires that each member actually be willing to go the distance and not half-ass the job. Half-assing can easily get you killed. Last but not least, for this particular job, for destroying XJ9, X, and Zero, we need to have lots of members that meet the first three requirements. We need as many as we possibly can. You wouldn't be able to surprise-attack her now if you tried. She knows that we'll be attacking at any time now, so she's constantly looking over her shoulders as we speak. So instead of trying to develop a way to attack her on your own, you'd be better off joining us so we can destroy them together," Sigma said.

"So, is that why thou hast decided to bring us here as well?" The Lancer asked.

"That's exactly why I decided to bring you all here. I hate to admit to myself just as much as you all hate to admit it to yourselves, but you know just as well as I do that there's no way we're going to be able to defeat them individually. I've tried every trick in the book I could think of besides attacking in large numbers, and nothing has worked so far. The only way is to completely overpower them. So, what do you say? Will you join us?" Sigma asked.

A moment later, Killgore let out a very harsh annoyed sigh, and then said "You know what hurts the most? It's that I know you're right about the fact that it may not be possible to defeat them on my own. I'm sure that all those other villains behind you have realized the same thing a long time ago. Of course we don't want to admit that to ourselves. We have too much pride. As a villain, I could never understand how it is that heroes win so often. Denying that it's a reality, then coming back for another one of their beatings time and time again…I think it's our way of dealing with it. What is it about having softer emotions and caring about the well being of others that gives them their strength? It's something we will probably never understand. Well, no matter what the reality is, we always try to find a way to defeat them, don't we?"

"That we do?" Sigma replied.

"As much as I despise the idea of working with any of you, I find that I have to admit that we do need to rethink our strategies. I will work with you for now, but keep in mind that once this is all said and done, our alliance is over," Killgore said.

Sigma turned around and asked "And what decision did the rest of you make?"

One by one, they all agreed to work with each other until it's all over.

"Now that that's established, why is it that you seem to feel so damned comfortable and enthusiastic about working with us?" Vladimir asked.

"Enthusiasm? I suppose you can call it that. Despite the fact that most of you have added me to your hit list, I feel quite comfortable about working with you. I've been on hit lists for many years now, so this is no surprise to me. I embrace all the good and bad that comes with such a partnership. If in the end, you manage to reach your goals, making temporary and necessary exceptions are but a small price to pay for that goal. It's true that I would hope you would come to except me as your true partner, and possibly even a brother in arms, though I'm sure you're not quite ready for such yet. I…have a much deeper respect for you all than you think. My personal goal has always been to one day build an empire…no…a utopia where unique and misunderstood individuals like us can work to change the world into a better place. Wishing for destruction of the world is a ridiculous concept that people incapable of having faith in saving the world think up. I bet you're thinking that a man that looks like me can't possibly want to save this world. I do, but the people in charge are steadily destroying this planet as we speak. Sure, they're rebuilding its structures and attempting to re-grow its plant life, but they in turn use these resources for their own personal gains. It's a vicious cycle that will eventually lead to this world's utter annihilation. The same is happening to our world as we speak. I care about both worlds, and once we find a way to return, we intend to not only establish a utopia here, but to link both worlds together as one grand utopia. I'm sure X and his friends are working on a way to get there as we speak, and so are we. On another note, the way you spend your lives is…and I mean no disrespect to you personally…it fuels the fire that will eventually destroy this world. That is the only reason why I would use the often misused term "villain" to describe either of you. I can assure you that ruling the world on your own is a wasted effort. No one man or life-form can maintain an entire world. Uncooperative people under your rule, who hate you, will not have the motivation to maintain a world suitable enough even for your survival. You shouldn't lie to yourselves believing that there is a way around that. Not one of you among your group is a god, and neither am I. I know it's hard to accept because the mere mention of hard work is extremely undesirable. However, if we work together, we can achieve what has never been achieved before. And, anyone on the side of this plan will be welcome to the plentiful bounty that our new world promises. So…what do you say?" Sigma asked.

"I must admit, we do often lie to ourselves thinking that we can do it on our own, that we don't need the help of anyone else. After seeing how you performed against Killgore…and you still believe that you can't do it on your own…then what does that say about me? I might be strong, but those laser weapons and those reflexes of yours would tear me apart. And if you haven't managed to defeat those , what chance do I stand? I don't know about you boys, but I'd much rather be on the side of this new world than to be there enemy. I don't know why…but I've…I've never been this scared in my life. It's not just because I know he could kill me, but also because I never thought about the consequences of what would happen to me if I failed to maintain this world. That is indeed a path to self-destruction. Whoever put this world and its people here did so for a reason. We can't survive without each other. We don't have to like each other, but we do have to realize that at some point, that we are only hurting ourselves by living the way we do. We all decided, relatively recently, that we wanted the world for our own. Our goals may have been different in the beginning, but we all realized that we would've tried to take over the world in the end anyway and hog it to ourselves. One man ruling the world, it really isn't possible…effectively," Himcules said.

One by one, they all realized that he was right. If someone as strong as Himcules can realize that, why not them? All of them, even Giga-Watt and Killgore knew that they were beaten, physically and logically. One by one, they all agreed to the partnership Sigma requested. Sigma's grin grew wide with a great feeling of success.

"Thank you for coming to realize the true destiny of our worlds. You will all be rewarded, I assure you. Help me work towards a new age of ultimate prosperity. Working together, it can be done. Those who only help prolong the cycle or work towards these worlds' destruction are not wanted in our eventual glorious new age. If they are not stopped, we will eventually all perish. We must act now. Now is the time for a great change upon these misused worlds. Now is the time for true providence," Sigma proclaimed proudly.


	17. Chapter 17

Charlotte had decided to visit Vexus again. From what they discussed with each other, they've definitely started to become a lot more comfortable around each other. After sharing a few personal secrets with each other, Charlotte was a little more than surprised at one of Vexus's secrets.

"What? That guy? I mean…don't get me wrong…he's quite attractive…but I never thought you of all people would fall for a guy at all, not even Zero," Charlotte said loudly with a blush.

Blushing as well, Vexus said "Military dictators can't afford to show weakness. That's why I never showed this side of my personality until now."

"I admit, I kinda figured that. I gotta say though, Zero definitely knows how to bring the whole girly man thing back into style," Charlotte said.

Vexus giggled some and said "I didn't quite think about it like that."

"Well, if you are really serious about trying to date him or something, all I can say is, good luck," Charlotte said.

"I'll need something more than luck if I hope to succeed. I haven't talked that way to a man in centuries. I'm honestly not sure if I have what it takes anymore," Vexus said.

"You mean like…uhh…divine intervention or something? Charlotte asked.

"That's a little too deep, don't you think? Besides, I haven't seen any evidence of a higher power intervening when people need it as long as I've been around," Vexus replied.

"I wasn't asking what your beliefs were, necessarily, but now that you said it…" Charlotte pried.

Vexus sighed and explained "The question is not whether I believe in the existence of a higher being or beings; it's just that I don't think they care about us. If they exist, they exist. If they don't they don't. I don't care about them if they don't care about us."

"I'm not sure about what I believe yet personally; so many unanswered variables. If he does, why doesn't he show himself? I'm not going to go too deep into that right now, but I do hope you find somebody someday. I would really hate for to be lonely forever," Charlotte said.

A moment later, Vexus asked in a tone that sounded as if she could cry soon "Why…do you care about me?"

Charlotte gasped at her sudden change of tone.

"I…I don't see you as a mean and nasty person anymore. I see you as the person hidden deep down inside of you that wanted desperately to come to the surface for so long: the real you; not the front that you put on to hide yourself. For centuries you were a heartless tyrant, and if that's what you really are deep down, you wouldn't have shed pleading tears the way you had. You wouldn't have tried to save my life," Charlotte answered.

Vexus clenched her fists tightly and grew frustrated with Charlottes words. A moment later, she felt Charlotte's hands land on her shoulders, which startled her. She looked up at Charlotte wide-eyed.

Charlotte then pleaded "Whatever it is that's holding you back from expressing how you really feel, please…let it go. Your past cannot control you unless you let it. If you want to break free from it, then let it go. I don't want to see you suffer anymore."

"My suffering? But…but what about all the suffering I caused? Wouldn't you say that I deserve to suffer for my crimes?" Vexus asked with a trembling voice.

"I don't know what you deserve. All I know, is that all those people you killed and enslaved, and all those hearts you've broken, it's already done. It cannot be reversed. It cannot be fixed. You can't give back to them what you've already taken. You lying here in your own guilt and self-pity won't serve any good purpose. I don't know much about God, but the scriptures do say that judging people is not our place. I have no desire to condemn you. I won't you to know that I forgive you. I ask that you please don't condemn yourself," Charlotte pleaded further.

Trying hard not to cry, Vexus asked in a high-pitched whine "What should I do?"

Reacting to the way Vexus asked that question, Charlotte fought hard to hold back her tears.

Charlotte then took a strained deep breath and asked in a trembling voice "What are you afraid of?"

"I'm afraid…I'm…afraid of…changing my ways. I…don't know how to live the way normal people do anymore. I used to live the way you do, but that was more than fifteen hundred years ago. I'm so used to my way of life, that I'm afraid…I might fail. I'm also…afraid…of your people. They'll never accept me," Vexus answered.

"I accepted you. I know I can't speak for everyone, but if you show that you are sincerely sorry for what you've done, and if you work really hard to gain their trust, I'm sure you'll eventually be accepted by more people like me. Not everybody is as condemning as you seem to think. There are many people who realize that stubbornly holding grudges is like a disease, that if not treated, may eventually lead to destruction. Finding those people is a good option for you if that's what you want," Charlotte explained.

"I'm tired of hiding all the time. It's so…it's so lon…it's so lonely…" Vexus said before losing control of her emotions.

Charlotte hugged Vexus tightly, and with watery eyes said "It's okay. I understand. I'm here to help you."

With her face buried in Charlotte's chest crying and great difficulty speaking properly, Vexus asked "Smytus…Kra…Krackus…why did you betra…why did you leave me?"

As soon as Vexus finished, her words sent a huge surge of emotion through Charlotte's body, causing her to clench her eyes shut very tightly and whimper in short strained bursts with tears pouring down her face.

* * *

All of the XJs were outfitted with the reploid technology. There appearance was no different besides that of XJ6's, who was finally given a left arm. As far as the robotic DNA switching is concerned, though Ms. Wakeman figured out how to reproduce it, it wasn't perfect by any means. It works but, for now, the issue is that there a few unfortunate bugs left, and possibly more that are unknown.

For instance, just as ordinary personal computers lag from time to time, the DNA switching might lag as well. Secondly, the DNA switching was only installed into their outer armors, so they need to not only be careful not to hurt themselves, but also be aware that once their outer armors are destroyed, they can no longer use that ability. Finally, there is a processing power issue that prevented Ms. Wakeman from programming the ability to utilize more than one type of switch. She needs to use close to the same amount of processing power in their armors as in the XJ's brains as the reploids do. Years ago, she was relieved that she didn't have to go through that much trouble, but now, she wishes she had.

"I swear; Drs. Light and Wily must've been amazing geniuses to have developed you two without all of these technical issues to worry about," Ms. Wakeman said frustrated.

"My upcoming response will be because of the 'not knowing what it's like to live on the other end of the spectrum' issue, but we never really admired them much for their genius because they were able to make us. We think of them as 'fathers, so to speak,' that we wish we could've known better. I don't remember Wily at all besides his face and a voice that I can't really make out in my dreams, and X only remembers bits and pieces of his conversations with Light before he was finally sealed away," Zero explained.

Ms. Wakeman thought about it for a moment, and before she had a chance to speak, the upstairs door was opened. Footsteps and the voices of Jenny and Sheldon were heard coming from above.

"I'll get back to you two on this subject later," Ms. Wakeman said.

"Time to entertain a guest. I wonder who it is," X pondered.

"You know that boy that I told you about that was head-over-heels for XJ9?" Ms. Wakeman asked softly.

Both X's and Zero's eyes widened and they both said in unison "Oh!"

They were familiar with the story.

As soon as the door to the room opened, both Maverick Hunters got a good look at Sheldon. Zero somehow expected someone even nerdier looking than Sheldon based on the description XJ5 gave him, but he thought his actual appearance was just fine. X didn't have an objection at all, and actually didn't have much of an opinion either way; and that was probably because humans falling for reploids and vice versa was common in their world anyway.

"I know this is a bit cliché, but…I somehow expected you two to be taller," Sheldon said while getting a good look at the Maverick Hunters.

Feeling a little awkward by that statement, X asked "How many times have we heard that one before?"

"I see that comment never ceases to make you feel a little self-conscious, X," Zero teased.

"Sorry about that. Anyway, Jenny already let me know you two have heard just about everything there is to hear about me. And yes, I already know mostly everything there is to know about you two," Sheldon pointed out.

"Well, that saves us a lot of time," Zero said.

"So, what's the order of business for the day Mr. Lee? Ms. Wakeman asked.

"You almost sound really quick to get rid of me," Sheldon replied.

"Well no…I'm just a little anxious to know what you've come to tell us," Ms. Wakeman said.

"Okay then; first I've to let you guys know that I've not only finished rebuilding Silver Shell, but I've highly improved it, and as a safety precaution, I made it totally remote control. With that, I don't actually have to go into battle myself. But I could've told you all that over the phone. The thing I really wanted to tell you is that I had a chance to have a private chat with a very well known and nearly impossible to track scientist that goes by the user name '**Habakkuk_3_3-6.**' Yes, he is referring to the Holy Bible. The point is that he told me after doing plenty of his own research and receiving information from his connections, that first; the Mavericks are successfully recruiting many known and dangerous villains from all over the world with surprising ease. Apparently, they are more willing than we thought to completely sell out their own world. The second thing he told me is that that The Mudslinger is surprisingly still alive, but has practically lost all touch with reality as a result of what Smytus and Krackus did to him and that he is being held in custody by Russian authorities," Sheldon explained.

"Why haven't they told us yet?" Jenny asked.

'That's actually because they only recently found him wondering around in the wilderness within the past few days. As to exactly how he managed to get to Russia from here is the real mystery," Sheldon answered.

"As far as recruiting your villains is concerned, Sigma has an unearthly high level of charisma despite his scary appearance. His words, they make the average person who doesn't know any better want to throw away the convictions that you've developed your entire life in order to follow his cause. He's an expert at making his ambitions seem like a dream come true, but concealing any trace of his actual twisted agenda. Good thing his so-called great speeches don't work on Zero and Me anymore," X explained.

"I'll keep that in mind when I meet him," Jenny said.

"The other thing he told me is that about a month ago, Killgore was confirmed alive," Sheldon said.

"Oh, no! You've gotta be kidding me! Why him too? Every time he shows up, he proves to be even more dangerous than the last time. I felt for sure his power ran out a long time ago," Jenny said surprised and irritated.

"The problem though, is that his current whereabouts are unknown," Sheldon added.

"I just hope he doesn't challenge me again while we're fighting those Mavericks. I just don't know how much I can take," Jenny said somewhat nervously.

"Killgore huh? What a name?" Zero asked.

"Actually, I did some research on some of the villains here, and it turns out that this Killgore guy is on the PMDV or 'Potentially Most Dangerous Villains' list. He once successfully rebuilt that Armagedroid we heard about, which surprised everyone, including Jenny, who had a direct encounter with the situation," X explained.

"The reason I came over here to tell you this is because 'Habakkuk_3_3-6' told me that if I valued my own safety, I wouldn't relay this message over any form of electronic circuit. So, that's the gist of it all," Sheldon concluded.

"I figured as much. I've heard about this Kabakkuk person on a number of occasions, but I never once tried to find him. All I know for sure is that the official story on him is that he is a scientist…which is a bit too vague if you ask me. The good news is that he's been around for far too long for him to be one of Sigma's followers in disguise. He seems pretty resourceful to have been able to find out the information that he did…which leads me to believe that he could've been one of the scientist who worked in the military in the first intergalactic war. I say this because I remember when I was in that war, I was told about an ingenious little trick used for untraceable infiltration for spying missions. It's the usual tiny robotic bug that records information using a camera that usually goes unnoticed, with the exception of a failsafe that causes the bug to suddenly self destruct the moment it's noticed by the enemy. That way the signal won't be traceable. Then again, most anything from that long ago can be sold on the black market nowadays," Ms. Wakeman explained.

"The important thing is that we can't dismiss this information as entirely untrue. We need to go about this cautiously," Zero suggested.

"True indeed," Jenny agreed.


	18. Chapter 18

A particularly high level of eeriness hung in the air constantly. Six weeks passed with absolutely no activity from the Mavericks. In ordinary circumstances, people would stop worrying so much and stop looking over their shoulders, but this is an impending war they're anticipating. Many ordinary citizens whose previous lifetime convictions told them never to buy a gun or deadly weapons of any kind have changed their minds and have been preparing themselves for battle ever since the worldwide announcements were made.

One of the major issues is that a large number of people are panicking so badly that they're running to find shelter in military bases and any other facility or location they think will help. Surprisingly though, a relatively small number of people have committed suicide because of their panicking.

* * *

"It's really a sad state of affairs when one realizes how castrated the once much braver human race has become. They need to realize that the best course of survival is to stand and fight instead of run; but they're not concerned about the preservation of the human race as a whole, are they? Noooooo! They'd rather save themselves individually or look from someone else to save them. Selfish. SELFISH!" Melody yelled angrily as she slammed her fist into the arm of the metal chair she was sitting in.

"And frightened like small animals. I want to protect them the same way you guys do, but I wonder if it even worth it sometimes. The more so-called peace these people experience, the more they lose the will to fight to survive," She said as she looked at photos of Jenny and the Maverick Hunters.

"Then there's you two. Maverick Hunters you call yourselves. If it weren't for the fact that you two showed up when you did, and showed that you are willing to fight on our behalf, I probably would've lost hope after a while. You've been doing this for more than a hundred years, and you haven't lost it yet. Wow! That's the word for it. I think I would've lost my mind long before that. What causes you two to persevere the way you do? It's got to be fuckin' maddening," She said.

She sighed and leaned back in her chair. She then began to think of father again…it only made her mood worse. Her angry eyes began to glaze over with tears. A few seconds later, she sat up quickly slamming her fist into the chairs arm again, and rubbing the tears from her eyes. I will NOT…cry for that man! I need to think about something else."

She began looking at the photos again.

"Admittedly, you've got the looks Zero, but I definitely admire X a lot more. I get the feeling he keeps you in check somehow. You seem like a loose cannon, unlike X," Melody said with a slight grin.

* * *

To my old friend,

I have an idea that may interest you, Nora. I know you don't trust me, and frankly, I don't trust you either. I'm only doing this because of my heightened sense of desperation. The new war will start soon, and probably sooner than we think. I will understand if you chose not to accept this proposal. I need upgrading and you happen to be the best candidate for the job. I understand your workload for upgrading your daughters is top priority for you right now, but you and I both know that it likely isn't enough. I've ran through hundreds of calculations based on what information we've gathered about the reploids, and it's sad to say that even your daughters and those Hunters together will likely not be enough. I know you've done probably more calculations than I have and that you've come up with the same results. We will probably be annihilated. Skyway Patrol and whatever new weapons the world governments are working on are likely not going to be enough. It's a terrible situation, like sending a child to fight a tank with a bb gun. That may be a little bit of an exaggeration, but you get the point. I know we have our differences, but I came to realize that I am in just as much danger as you. Those villains Sigma is recruiting don't seem to realize how fruitless it is to trust him. He doesn't care about them. I'm glad I realized this as quickly as I did. I was a ruthless dictator myself, so I know all about manipulation…or propaganda, as some people like to call it. Before you make your decision, keep this in mind; I understand the risk of allowing you work on my body,

Vexus

"I have to admit, she really has lost it if she thinks I would, in my right mind, help her," Ms. Wakeman said irritated.

"At least she didn't try asking in person first. That was smart of her to send a letter…for her own safety," XJ5 said.

"As unexpected as this is, and as crazy as she seems, I do agree that we need extra help. But man; why is it the only other person willing to help this situation is Vexus of all people?" Jenny asked.

A moment later, Ms. Wakeman asked in a way that sounded as if she expecting an answer "I guess, the most important question is…why hasn't she left Earth yet?"

A moment later, "Jenny said "That is a good question. I've also given this a lot of thought. I…I'll just come out with it straight. I think she's decided that Earth is her new home."

"If that's so, then why?" XJ7 asked.

"Well, she did tell me that she no longer seems to have the drive to attack anymore. I think she's been in a state of 'time out' for so long now, that she's seriously re-evaluated her entire motivation for living. Two years is a long time to think about what you've been doing all your life. I've come to mostly believe that we don't need to worry about her anymore. In my mind, I don't even classify her as one of the villains anymore. I'm still cautious of course, but I really don't think she has the drive to go back to her old life. I think that, just maybe, she might actually one day turn over a new leaf….or remain a hermit. It's hard to tell for sure," Jenny explained.

"She's likely just playing tricks on you, XJ9," Ms. Wakeman said with obvious anger in her voice.

"I talked to her when that Phoenix guy arrived, and when she spoke, I could hear a huge lack of that self-confidence and self-assurance that she's been known for. She could barely look me directly in the eye for more than a couple of seconds like she used to always do. She sounded angry, but it didn't sound directed towards me. It sounded like it was directed toward herself. Honestly, I think some small portion of her wanted to apologize…for everything…but couldn't bring herself to do it. I even think I'm crazy for thinking that sometimes myself, so I know how you feel mom. I've gotten better at listening for involuntary signs of honesty and dishonesty, and she sounded completely honest. I know…I understand why you're looking at me like that mom," Jenny explained with a convincingly honest expression on her face.

With a confused look now on her face, Ms. Wakeman asked in disbelief "You're serious, aren't you?"

A moment of silence followed that seemed to make time slow down somewhat.

XJ6 said angrily "All these years….and I still don't understand half of what goes on in that crack-headed brain of yours. Before I thought you decided to let her go because you felt like we had more important things to worry about, BUT NOOOOoooo, I see now you were actually being serious when you said you thought she might change."

Jenny was now staring at her with obvious anger in her eyes.

"I never heard you insult her like that before. That's not nice at all," XJ4 said angrily.

XJ6 raised her voice some, and said with a harsh tone "I'm supposed to be understanding and supportive of Jenny because she's my sister, but I've completely had it up to here with that crazy girl. What the fucking hell is wrong with you? You, by far, are the most illogical person I've ever met. Even…even XJ1 has more sense than you. First, it was you always trying to make yourself popular. Your arrogance used to drive me up the wall. Once you realized that didn't work, then it changed into trying to just…fit in with a population of people who would never except you. You should've known from the start that it was an impossible dream. We realized it and moved on with our lives, so why the fuck can't you? I calmed down some when I started to feel sorry for your miserable ass when you attempted suicide. Now this stupid shit. Vexus? Are you insane? There's no way we can ever tru…"

XJ6 stopped suddenly when Jenny's fist suddenly appeared four inches in front her face. Jenny's fist was trembling violently. Everyone in the room was shocked that Jenny almost seriously hurt XJ6.

Jenny then growled loudly in a tone that made it obvious her feelings were hurt quite badly "I know that I've driven you all crazy many times before. I was too proud and too stubborn to acknowledge that there are plenty of people out there with far worse problems than my own. Yes, I overheard your conversation about a year ago when you asked mom why I think I'm the only one with real problems. I played the victim role for far too long now, and I'm sorry that I put you through that. You didn't deserve it, and none of you deserved it either. I should never have forced my problems on any of you. I wonder myself if there is something wrong with me, so you don't have to ask me as if I've never given it any thought."

Jenny took moment to put her fist down and calm down slightly.

She then said "And don't you all try to play dumb with me. I know everyone in this room is deeply hurt by the discrimination we face. It has left an ugly painful scar on our hearts that will probably never go away. Most of you have learned how to stay calm about it better than I have, but I know it hurts, and I don't like knowing that you all are going through this pain. It's true that I focus on myself too much, but I'm also doing what I do for you all too. I figured that if even one of us could find a way to fit in, then that would set the precedent for the possibility of all of us fitting in. I'm not doing this only for myself anymore. I've been a stupid child most of my life, and I'm trying to get over my self-centeredness to make up for my past. I'm sorry for putting you all through so much unnecessary stress."

A moment of silence followed as Jenny now stared at the floor.

"We've faced discrimination in our world for as long as we've been alive, so we know how you feel. Based on some of the things we I heard about Jenny, however, I wondered whether or not she was really doing the right kind of job. Arrogant people often make poor heroes…or global defenders if you wanna call it that. But it's a good thing you're learning that there's a need for humility and humbleness. I do thank you for what you just said though," X said.

"I wondered if I was really qualified myself. Anyway, Vexus is a very difficult issue to deal with. I never once said I was ready to receive her open arms just yet. I need to talk with her again to determine if I'm right about my suspicions. I'm only doing this, because if she is sincere, she would be a great ally in this war. She said she didn't trust them herself, so any chance of her being stupid enough to join their side is basically out of the question. I think what you were really mad at was my apparent foolish optimism on the subject. I'm definitely optimistic, but I'm ready to pull the trigger on her at any moment, if necessary. Then there was all that bottled in anger that you've been holding inside of you all this time. I'm not mad that you told me those things, because they were legitimate concerns. You didn't have to insult me though," Jenny said to XJ6.

"All right. I'm sorry I did that. It's just…all this time, I wondered if you were really concerned about our feelings or not. You have done things to hurt my feelings far worse than the things those Krust girls ever said. Sometimes I just wanted to hurt you so badly, but I'm afraid that I don't stand a chance against you. Being stuck I a situation that can't be won against is maddeningly frustrating. Hurting you isn't the answer, and I know that, but why is it that one of the first things in the list of instinctive solutions to problems is violence?" XJ6 asked as if she was ready to cry.

"Well, that just goes to show us how much like humans we really are," XJ4 answered.

"In a way, I wish you hadn't said that, but it's undeniably true," XJ7 said.

Jenny grabbed both of XJ6's shoulders and said "Listen! For a long time now, I've been aware of your frustration. If you were to hate me forever right now, I would understand the reason. I would give you the space far away from me that you'd want, but you must know, if that happened, I would be so…heart broken. Knowing that I was responsible for destroying our relationship would be bad in itself, but never being able to speak to you again like a sister and friend would destroy a part of me. That goes for all of our sisters. I love you all, my sisters, and mom too, and I wish to make it to you somehow. I just hope we live long enough to make it a reality."

Jenny closed her eyes tight and forced herself to calm down.

A couple seconds after she stopped trembling, she asked with a hopeful look in her eyes "Can you find it in your heart to forgive me?"

"You found it in your heart, a heart scarred so badly…you were big hearted enough to forgive both Brit and Tiff for their transgressions. If I am unable to find it in mine to forgive you, then what kind of person would that make me. With that said, yes, I do forgive you," XJ6 replied.

With a trembling voice, Jenny said with a happy smile "If I could make tears, they'd be pouring from my eyes right now. Thank you so much. I love you big sister."

One by one, Jenny's arms wrapped around XJ6 in a hug.

With a voice trembling worse than before, XJ6 said "I lo…I love you too."

She then hugged her little sister back. One by one, all of the XJ sisters formed a group hug followed by their mother. If the sisters could cry as humans do, they would. They did cry though, the way they were able. Zero has never been known for crying. He did cry once before, be he, just as he didn't then, shed a single tear. He felt the surge of emotion from witnessing this event, but he managed to hold his composure together. X was able to see, that in a very difficult to notice way, Zero's eye twitch just enough to reveal that he felt like crying. X, on the other hand, did have a few tears roll down his face.

After wiping them away, X said "I guess we really did come to the right place after all."

Zero sighed and said "I think you're right, X. I think you're right."

Ms. Wakeman finally said "This is indeed the heart that I could never create. This level of human likeness is something I could never program. I thought I could program experience, but I see it's something that surpasses human understanding. It took me all these years…to realize it. I can build a body, and a brain, but I cannot create life. The proof is right there in front of me. Forget everything my so-called logical mind is telling me, I was right when I decided to call you my daughters. That little voice in my head will never make me doubt that again. I do want you all to know that I never regretted calling you my daughters. I don't regret making you either. You really have brought me more happiness than anything else in my life. I want us to never again think of us as a scientist and her experiments. I want us to think of ourselves as a genuine family."

One by one, her daughters all nodded in approval.

"If we were to go on thinking of us as you and products of your research, we would eventually have to call into question why we have chosen to stay together as long as we have. A big part of us all thought of our relationship as a real family for a long time now, so that is proof enough for me," XJ8 added.

* * *

As they continued talking, they were totally unaware of a certain someone watching them.


	19. Chapter 19

The following day at school, everyone noticed a cheerier than usual aura emitting from Jenny. A few had the guts to ask why, and she had a little trouble explaining it to them, considering that none of the ones that asked could really begin to relate.

She finally had the opportunity to tell both Brad and Sheldon the news before the day was over. Mr. Tier was absent that day for a meeting, so she would have to wait for that conversation.

When the school day was finally over, Jenny's next plan was to see if she could find where Vexus lives. As she began flying towards home to ask her mom for advice on how to go about finding Vexus, suddenly, the alarm sounded in her head. This time, for a reason she can't explain, she just knew the Mavericks were making their next move.

When Jenny was within fifty miles from the scene, her communicator activated.

"Sorry it took so long to call you. My computer was having problems at the most inopportune time. It's just as we feared, there is a Maverick wreaking havoc in a subway," Ms. Wakeman yelled.

"Do you know if there's been any casualties?" Jenny asked.

"None that we know of. Both Hunters are on their way to help you, but you will arrive first. Be careful," Ms. Wakeman replied.

"Don't worry. I will," Jenny assured.

* * *

When she arrived in the underground tunnel, she noticed a large number a dead bodies lying around. Some were small children too young to understand the situation they were in.

"But they were able to understand pain," Jenny growled angrily.

She activated her right arm laser in response to a loud deep clomping noise coming from the inside of the heavily damaged train. When she pointed, she saw first a large metal foot exit a huge hole on the side of the train, followed by a large walking tank body with a roughly human sized male reploid piloting it.

When they both made eye contact, the reploid laughed loudly, and then said "Man this is disappointing. I was hoping to find my old friends, X and Zero. It looks like they instead decided to send the so-called global defender bitch."

"HEY ASSHOLE! You first fuck up the happiest mood I've had in months by making me have to come out here, kill all these innocent people plus children, then you make me even more pissed by calling me a bitch all loud an proud and shit. You must really be asking to die" Jenny yelled furiously.

She ground her teeth together and fired a shot at the reploid. The reploid made the walking tank's left arm swat the projectile to the side. The projectile exploded when it impacted the floor twenty feet away from them.

"See what I mean? You're not capable of taking down an experienced veteran like me. From what I've seen, I could beat you just as easily without my Ride Armor. I don't care how pissed off you get; it doesn't change the fact that you ran into the wrong guy at the wrong time," the reploid explained.

"Talk about one who's gone way off the deep end. You lack remorse to the point where you feel no need to mention the fact that you slaughtered these people and their children. Is your loyalty to Sigma and his cause so important that it's worth sacrificing compassion?" Jenny yelled.

"Ah yes, Sigma and his cause. I'm the only one that works for that fool that cares nothing for his precious cause. I have my own reasons for my actions, and they are not for you to know. About those lumps of flesh on the floor, and that one on the bench over there, compassion is for those who are willing to sacrifice their own goals in case the circumstance puts a road block in their path. Consistency is the only sure path," the reploid answered.

Filled with a burning hatred for the reploid she just met, Jenny charged him directly, running at top speed ready to end his life to avenge those he murdered. She transformed her right forearm into a very long chain saw and swung straight downwards. The reploid blocked the saw with the Ride Armor's right forearm. She continued pressing downwards hoping to cut right through the arm and next through the reploid. The process was slow enough to allow the reploid time to act. The Ride Armor's left arm swung attempting to grab her around the waist. She quickly kicked the arm out of the way long enough for her to transform her left hand into a small rocket engine and used it to push her right arm down much harder. The flame from the rocket thrust sprayed rapidly and stretched four and a half feet into the air. She managed to cut through the first layer of the arm's armor before a large cannon mounted onto the reploid's right shoulder aimed and fired several shots at Jenny. She backed away fast enough to swat away the shots. She landed on the ground and slid about ten feet before stopping. There was smoke coming from the Ride Armor's arm for a few seconds before it stopped. Jenny's chain saw arm was red hot like the coil eye of a stove and steaming.

"I'm still getting used to this upgrade," Jenny said.

"I am actually impressed, you managed to damage my new improved Ride Armor this much, without using that famous enhancer of yours. You must have been outfitted with reploid technology. This makes things a bit different than we expected. I was thinking that destroying you would be too easy," the reploid commented.

"You must be a veteran indeed. I just tried to kill you ruthlessly, and you still sound just as confident as before," Jenny commented.

They both turned their heads in the direction of Zero's voice saying "Ahh man, it's you again. How many times is Sigma going to revive your ass?"

"What's this guy's name anyway?" Jenny asked.

"His name is Vile. He was once a Hunter like us; one of the best. Then he turned Maverick. We've defeated you three times before. How are you still alive, Vile?" X asked.

"I was wondering when you'd ask me that. Let's just say that Sigma's little 'life insurance policy' provides for more coverage than just for himself," Vile answered.

"I don't know how he keeps doing it either, but I know there's a way to shut him and all of you down for good, and we're going to find it," Zero said.

Vile laughed and said "You've been trying to figure this out for a long time now, and you still have no direct clues. You'll never figure this out, Zero. You really should just give up trying to beat us…"

Zero cut him off by saying "Don't try that 'us' crap on me. I already know you don't give a crap about Sigma's plans. You're nothing but selfish and would be willing to destroy Sigma at any moment if you had the chance."

"You know, I was wondering if you realized that or not. I'm pretty sure he realizes it too, but as long as he keeps providing me with resources, I'm fine with the situation," Vile explained.

"I understand as much about Sigma's way of thinking as I understand your motives. You're not our biggest concern anyway, so either run and hide somewhere or continue your game. If you do continue, we'll destroy you again," X threatened.

"I don't plan on hiding necessarily, but I do need to run. My time here has run out," Vile said as he turned away and started running back inside the train.

Jenny and the hunters pursued him, but the train exploded before they had the opportunity to catch up, pushing them backwards. They soon regained their composure and stared into the flames for a moment.

"Damn, he always manages to make a getaway the first time we meet him…per situation," Zero pointed out.

"I'm sick of seeing dead bodies. I swear; this will end one day. Jenny; did you happen to see a chameleon looking reploid before he escaped?" X asked.

"Wait; what? You mean to tell me Vile wasn't the killer. He did kill those people that have been smashed; which is only a few. However, most of them have stab wounds. You see those spikes sticking out of their bodies? Those are weapons used by a reploid named Sting Chameleon," Zero explained.

Jenny immediately started looking around the room frantically.

"There's no need to worry. We know he's no longer in here. That's pretty quick that you realized that he could've camouflaged himself and been watching us the whole time," X commented.

"That realization was borderline instinctive. In any case, what should we do now? I'd rather not stand around waiting until I smell burning flesh," Jenny said.

"That's not a good smell, now that you mention it. We should leave this place and head to the surface. There's no need to risk running through all of these flames and to risk running into a trap," X explained.

"Sounds good. Let's go," Jenny agreed.

As they left the subway, Jenny thought mostly about how much she despised Vile. She also promised herself that this Sting Chameleon person would pay the price for what he's done. Suddenly, they heard several explosions coming from the surface. By the time they got there, the culprit had already escaped.

Not paying much attention to the destruction, X asked loudly "Hey, you…by the tree. Who did this?"

"It…it was a tall skinny robot like you. Yeah, that's right. You call yourselves reploids. He had dark colored armor and looked kinda like a praying mantis," the man answered.

Of course, the main reason he answered instead of running is because he trusted Jenny, not the hunters.

"Dark Mantis, again. What exactly is Sigma trying to gain by reviving so many of the Mavericks we've defeated already?" Zero asked.

Did you guys have a hard time beating them before?" Jenny asked.

"Most of the time, yes? Zero answered.

"I'm guessing the only reason why you all haven't seriously considered what I'm about to tell you is because Sigma usually doesn't operate this way. I believe he's trying to build as large an army as possible, and eventually attack all at once. Of course, this means to say, we're going to need all the help we can get. We're going to need an army of our own. If not that, a miracle," Jenny explained.

"That's one battle plan I've become convinced he'd never try. Looks like he's gone into serious desperation mode. Then again, maybe he's grown tired of dragging our seemingly endless battles out for so long, and he wants to end it once and for all," X guessed.

"Whatever the case, we need to contact as many people as possible, and see if they have anything that can help. I also still need to find Vexus," Jenny said.

As they turned in the direction of the Wakeman residence, Jenny stopped suddenly and said "Wait! Stop!"

"What's going on," X asked.

"I can't talk about it here. Let's go, and I'll tell you on the way," Jenny replied.

* * *

The hunters drove their motorcycles and Jenny traveled with them using her motorcycle transformation. Traffic wasn't an issue with so few vehicles on the road.

"I have some good news for you guys. I'm connected to your friend, Alia again," Jenny announced.

With a suddenly brightened mood, Zero smiled, and X said, "That's great! I hope she has some good news."

"She's still trying to make the connection more stable for the moment, and so am I. It shouldn't take long. It's just about…wait a sec….okay, I guess that's the best we can do for now. Anytime you're ready, Alia" Jenny said.

"I know you're the only one on your side that…...hear me right now. I'm glad that X and Zero are sti….kay too. I'm also glad Sigm…hasn't done too much damage yet. I hope that didn't sound as though I'm taking your situation lightly," Alia said.

The hunters only able to hear Jenny speaking, she replied "That thought did cross my mind, just a little. I do understand that you're not able to understand what's going on here except for my words though. Don't worry about it. I'm not offended. I do need to tell you that our situation here just isn't looking very good. We need help, and lot's of it. Hell, we basically need to amass a huge army by yesterday. Either that, or build a super weapon of some kind. Resources here are unfortunately very limited."

"I see. Well, I'm relieved to some degree to know that you're not naïve abou…your situation. At this moment, we can do nothing to help you until we find a way to reopen the portal. Strangely enough, we think we may have found a lead of some kind, just not the way we expected. I don't have enough time to expla…it this time because of how much energy our communication requires, but just know that we're doing everything we can to hurry this along. Please tell them we miss them, and thank y…very much for taking care of them," Alia said.

A few seconds of static noise later, and the message "CONNECTION LOST" appeared on the upper right hand region of Jenny's vision.

"Dammit, we lost the connection again. The good news is that she said they may have found a way of going about getting here, though they still need time. She also told me to say that they miss you, and that's when the connection was lost," Jenny explained.

"I really do miss everybody. Anyway, more importantly, now we know that if all goes well, it won't be too much longer until they find a way here. We could also really use our buddy Axl's help right about now. Too bad he was on another mission at the time, or he'd likely be here with us," Zero said.

"Is he as powerful as you two?" Jenny asked.

"Not quite, but his rapid firing capabilities pretty much make up for a lack of raw power. He's a survivor indeed, and highly skilled," X explained.

"That's good," Jenny said.


	20. Chapter 20

When Jenny and the hunters returned home, X explained the entire situation to Ms. Wakeman.

As they continued talking, Jenny finally got around to asking her mom "Do you have any advice on how to find Vexus?"

Ms. Wakeman sighed and said "All right. I can see that you are quite serious about evaluating her. As you know, I know a lot about her, so I did build a machine that can **'theoretically'** locate her whereabouts. It's supposed to try to find that orb floating above her head, but only if is active at the time. I happen to also know that even after she removed the control chip from her own head and destroyed it, the orb still emits a series of very low frequency radio waves constantly. And when I say very low, I mean it's very difficult to detect them, even with my equipment. If it is finally broken altogether, you'll have to find a different way. I'm doing this because I do agree with the part about her added strength being an asset in this battle. If she turns against us, I will use this device to track her again and have her detained indefinitely by Earth's authorities or destroyed if necessary. If she is sincere, then that's okay. Just keep in mind that she's responsible for the deaths of billions of people and has ruined a countless number of lives during her more than millennium long reign as the queen she used to be when deciding whether or not she's trustworthy."

Suddenly, that reality hit everyone who heard this.

Shocked, Zero asked loudly "What the hell?"

Jenny now wide-eyed, asked in a quiet disbelieving tone "Did she rea…that many people?"

"Yes she did. Jenny…I'm surprised it took you this long to realize this. She's two-thousand years old. How many people do you think you could kill in that amount of time if you survived the effort? That's why I was so angry when you seemed to think it was a **'good'** idea to try this. I mean…shit, who knows? Maybe she is finally starting to have a change of heart. Maybe…after being forced to live on Earth so long, she's started to develop an attachment to humans. Maybe she's had a lot of time to question herself and reconsider her way of thinking and her lifestyle during her two year long 'time out.' Her criminal record is so long, it would take me probably a year to find the time to write down every crime. She's been given the nickname 'Queen of the Dead" at some point in history. It's only now that you're understanding the sheer gravity of what you are trying to do. I have virtually no compassion for someone like that, but…if there is a chance that she may be trying to redeem herself sincerely, it would be wrong for me to not at least give her a chance. You have some time to think about this, but not a lot. I will not spend my time locating her, but you may, if you wish," Ms. Wakeman said in one of the most serious tones Jenny's ever seen.

Silence filled the room as Jenny closed her eyes and lowered her head. She concentrated intensely on making a decision. Close to an entire minute passed before she finally opened her eyes and looked back at her mother's eyes.

With a serious expression of her own, Jenny said "Okay. I've made my decision."

* * *

Vexus heard a knocking at the front door of the building she was currently in. She was in yet another abandoned building, but in another location away from where she lives. She didn't want Jenny to know where to find her home.

Slowly getting up off of the table she was lying on, she prepared herself for the worst in case it was someone trying to kill her. She finally opened the door to reveal the visitor.

"I have grown bored waiting for you to show, but here you are. Would you like to come inside and make yourself comfortable?" Vexus asked with a half-convincing smile.

"How do I know you won't try to kill me?" Jenny asked.

"I told you before, I no longer have it in me. Please, come in. We have things to discuss," Vexus said as she began walking away from Jenny.

Jenny started following her cautiously.

As she walked, Jenny said "That little letter you sent my mom is, as you know, the reason I'm here."

Jenny scanned the interior of the small building before following Vexus. As soon as she discovered that there was no sign of a trap, she followed her. There were two small sort of worn chairs in the center of the largest room, which wasn't exactly large at all. They both sat across from each other.

"I know by now you've already guessed that this isn't my current home. It's true; I don't want you to know where I'm living. It's not just you. I don't really want anyone knowing where I live," Vexus explained.

"Figures. I'm not really concerned about that though. I've gathered that really have become desperate if you're willing to trust mom with your body. She could easily install a kill virus into your main processor," Jenny informed.

A sigh followed and Vexus explained in a relaxed tone that Jenny has never heard her in before "I'm well aware, but I don't have a choice. I'm at the point in my life where a transition is taking place. Either I risk it with your mother, or I risk it with Sigma. These past two agonizingly long years have made me realize things that I both never noticed and have ignored. On one end, for most of my life, I've ignored this…something inside of me that's been trying to get me to recognize the error of my ways. On the other end, I've realized…for the first time, that there actually is value…in fleshly beings. Please allow me to finish. Over these past two years, I've often spent time observing the actions of humans. They didn't make a good impression on me at first. They are some of the most inconsistent beings I've ever met. They change from one day to the next based on the way they feel about their situation in life, which often causes the foundations they've attempted to set up in their lives to crumble. They often don't sincerely value their own kind. The proof lies in the fact that they are constantly trying to find ways to take things from each other in order to gain something in their own lives. Sometimes they take it all the way to the extreme in the sense that they're often willing to end each other's lives in order to gain something. They claim to possess a humanitarian attitude, but only practice it to those they feel they can benefit from. I always thought the members of any specific race were supposed to value each other above any other race. They're constantly making the worst decisions imaginable that doom what they claim to be working for. I've seen some awful things. I've seen a fourteen year old mother who didn't want her offspring drown the child of only three days living in a kitchen sink and wrapped him up in a blanket and threw him in a dumpster. I've seen a neighbor dispute that ended not only each other's lives, but also the life of a woman who had nothing to do with the situation. A fifteen year old girl purposefully let her dog loose to kill an elderly woman who was minding her own business. A man kidnapped four women and hid them in his basement, and after raping them, beat them to death with his fists one by one. I naturally did nothing about it even though I could have. I cared nothing for them at the time. I was simply observing there animalistic behavior. Then I came to realize that all flesh beings are that way. I came to realize even further…that we…are not too much different. Under my rule, I maintained a peace amongst the citizens of Cluster Prime that masked our true nature. Robots tend to naturally remain consistent in their daily activities, or so it seemed. I remember labeling the ones that were inconsistent and self destructive as simply being defective, as if they were the same as a malfunctioning appliance, and simply disposing of them. The age of that planet's peace lasted so long that I lost sight of the truth. The same way a human might kill one of their own that doesn't follow along with the order of things, is basically the same way we go about it. I allowed myself to believe we were superior by nature, but now I realize that I forced that on my society. I see now the only thing that surely separates robots from flesh beings is our bodies. Mentally and emotionally, we are just as fragile as one another. Some people on the other make more productive decisions, and that's where I used to think real value lied. It turns out that sometimes, certain people who normally make destructive decisions, make decisions that save lives. Sometimes those who normally make productive decisions, destroy lives. An endless cycle of conflicting opinions based on circumstances. It makes one wonder where true worth lies. With that said, I realize that I am both just as potentially bad and as potentially good as any flesh being. Also, no longer being a slave of trying to maintain an image as a strong leader, I've come to listen to my emotions more than I'm used to. I tried to block them out at first, but I gave in over time. I've spent a lot of time imagining myself in other people's shoes. The more I understood people's motives, the more it affected me. In time, I began to feel sorry for them. I then remembered something from my childhood. I remembered how our creators oppressed us…and how I used my hatred as an excuse to justify my way of thinking. The irony is that something as simple and primitive as me playing the revengeful victim role for personal gain played a part in me believing that I was somehow superior. I have seen the greatness in certain people though. Some people have done amazing things that have proved to me the potential worth of all sentient beings."

Vexus gave a somewhat shocked Jenny a moment to ponder the things Vexus just said.

"Those words, coming from a normal person, would lead me to believe that was a prepared speech. From you…they sound sincere. I have to know. Did you help us that day, four months ago?" Jenny asked hopefully.

A moment later, Vexus answered in an almost whisper "I was helping the little boy."

Jenny gasped a little and said "The way your voice and your body is trembling…I know you're telling the truth. Why did you help him?"

Vexus lowered her gaze and answered "I had begun to feel as though I were dying while connected to that machine. It wasn't in a painful way…it felt more like my life was slowly drifting away. Then I had a vision of Vega crying out in pain. I awoke to see the boy crying his eyes out in a vain attempt to awaken his dead mother. He thought…he thought she was only just asleep. I wondered why children should have to be exposed to such a…complicated…reality. I then remembered, after so long, almost losing my father the same way. I saw the truck coming to take that boy's life. I thought…NO…that's just not fair. And then…and then it happened. I lost control. I didn't know why I was so concerned about a human's fate, but I was. I was. I suddenly felt as though…all…of the positive energy stored up that I never used in my life suddenly…exploded. For some reason, I suddenly felt as though that boy's life must be saved…and at any cost. When it was over, I couldn't believe what I had done. Strangely enough, it felt…fulfilling. I felt, in that moment, that I had accomplished more than I had in my entire life. I told Smytus and Krackus the bad news, then everything went black."

"I never once imagined I'd see you on the verge of crying. You didn't even cry when you were stripped of your power, but your expressing this much emotion over a human child," Jenny said.

Vexus then yelled "It's not just the boy; it's the whole human race. This whole world has seen so much tragedy…so much sadness. Every world has seen it. I'm finally able to imagine what it must be like for all of those people that still grieve as a result of what I've done to them. I caused it. It's my fault. It's all my fault."

Jenny grabbed Vexus's shoulders and yelled "Snap out of it. Please…calm down."

Vexus finally came to her senses and stared at Jenny's concerned face.

"I'm sorry I didn't have enough faith in you Vexus. I can see now that you are telling the truth. If you, of all people can suffer from being aware of other people's suffering, then I have no room to complain about having to deal with my suffering," Jenny said.

Vexus grabbed Jenny's left forearm wither her right hand, smiled, and said "I even put myself in your shoes. You've felt so much pain. I can look at you and see how much it has affected you. You're not as happy as you used to be. There was a time…when I admired you for your ability to remain happy…even with all the discrimination. Now it's gone. I'm so sorry. I don't want to see you like this anymore. I wish that you could return to the way you were. I don't hate you anymore. You taught me the error of my ways…and I thank you."

Jenny held back her blush and said "I don't hate you either. I never really did. And don't worry, I'll make sure mom doesn't hurt…"

Vexus cut her off by whispering "I haven't slept…in days."

She lowered her head and fainted.


	21. Chapter 21

"It was the strangest landscape I had ever laid eyes on. This particular planet was in a star system with a red star, but this planet was such a position where it received most of its light from the star of the system's neighboring star. It was a very large and very bright neutron star. One would think this planet would be pulled out of its orbit by the gravity of the neutron star, but that didn't happen. It was just the right distance away necessary to remain in its proper orbit. Cluster's scientist figured that the reason it wasn't snatched from its orbit was also due to the very strange phenomenon that caused the planet's orbit to be distorted. The other four planets all followed the same horizontal elliptical pattern whereas this one followed more of a diagonal orbit. The landscape was mostly rocky surface with plenty of melted slushy ice in large bodies in certain areas. The unusual part was the way the odd violet light illuminated the surface. Then there were the shooting stars we witnessed. I've traveled to many planets in my reign and I had yet to see this. I remember how most of us admired this sight…as I remember how Smytus thought we were merely wasting our time. I understood his indifference considering he had seen more than I have in my lifetime. There was also the fact that he never admired art very much anyway. I also remember the time I had a conversation with my daughter. She asked me why robots were so superior to flesh beings. For some reason, she didn't understand. I remember being frustrated with her…yelling at her…slapping her…forcing my beliefs on her. I also remember seeing that man run as fast as the wind. My soldiers weren't fast enough to stop him from advancing to spot where I was standing. My top guards did stop him. Before he was impaled through the chest, he asked that I actually stop for a moment and ask myself what my purpose really is. I remember thinking that such a thing was rubbish. I issued the order, and he was dead. As I stared at his terror stricken face that the pain of the death blow caused him, I do remember asking myself why death always looks so terrible. I also remember a time where a man that I held in the air by his shirt collar saying that if I weren't trying to kill him, he'd ask me out on a date because he thought I was so beautiful. I did kill him. I remember blushing slightly and wondering how it was possible for a flesh wearer to be attracted to a robot. I also remember defeat…frustration…anger…hatred…loss…sadness…lonliness…regret…guilt."

These were the words that appeared letter by letter on the screen revealing Vexus's forethoughts. She lay there on an operating table inside of a large closed container with a window so she can look out of it when she wakes up. Everyone in the room stared at the screen speechless.

A moment later, Vexus's voice was heard through the computer's speakers saying and a trembling tone "So I see you've been reading my dream."

They all looked through the glass to see tears streaming down her face. Neither of them had ever seen her like this.

"It wasn't intentional. It was as if you were trying desperately to be heard, so you hacked into my computer's text program. That's the way it seems as far as these readings are concerned," Ms. Wakeman explained.

Vexus looked around the room to see who all was in attendance. She then lay eyes on a man in a suit.

"Hello there, Vexus," the man greeted.

"Who are you?" Vexus asked nervously.

"My name is Gary Hodges. I represent the Global Defense Force. Yours is a special case indeed. I have been sent here to determine if you qualify for us to agree to spare you as far as criminal prosecution is concerned," Mr. Hodges replied.

"This is the risk I've decided to take. I was sure that the reason Jenny hadn't been trying to arrest me was because she wasn't required to," Vexus said.

"It's good that you understand the risk you took by coming here. Yes, it's true. XJ9's citizenship is unusual, so her responsibilities as a citizen are complicated. Also, she took no oath to protect the Earth. She was made that way. It was decided that since her mind wasn't much more developed than that of a child in the sense that her level of real life experience is lilted compared to that of a human adult, that she wasn't required to act as an officer of the law. The one rule she was required to follow however, was that if she made a decision that would put Earth's safety in jeopardy, she would suffer the consequences. In your case, your track record over these past two years has lead us to believe that you may be sincere about trying to change your life. There's been no report of you attacking anyone. Neither have we had much of a reason to believe you'd try to take over the Earth again. It's not as though you have the resources to try anyway. Then there was the attack four months ago. Some of us did debate over whether or not you were trying to help us. Many, as well as I, believed you were only trying to help yourself. Then there was Captain Black Phoenix. There was no reason to believe that you had any affiliation with him, nor were you trying to gain anything from his presence. You risked your life against someone who was clearly strong enough to destroy with ease. With that realization in mind, we thought we'd try to evaluate you to see if you are trustworthy. I need you to understand, though, that if you are serious about trying to win our favor, the process will not be easy by any means. Listen to me carefully when I say this. I lost my grandfather to your tyranny. I spent decades thinking about how I was going to exact my revenge on you. These past two years have taught me that you are not the devil I thought you were. I'm going against my better judgment believe that you can be changed and that revenge isn't worth it. I hope you are sincere. Now, before I forget; the other reason for this evaluation is because of the incentive that you would be a great asset in this war against the Mavericks," Mr. Hodges explained.

"Of course there's that incentive: all the help you can get. My official statement is that I will help you fight in this war. The only thing I ask for in return is the upgrade I requested. I have no right to ask you for anything beyond that. You have won already. I am in your custody. I already know that this building is surrounded by many armed guards and an energy barrier that prevents me teleporting away from here. Even if I managed to overcome the guards, I'd have Jenny over there to worry about. To put your minds at ease, I'm turning myself in willingly. I'm tired of running and hiding. I've reached the very bottom of the barrel in my life. I'm guilty of too many crimes to deserve mercy. If you decided to kill me and jettison my scrapped body into the cold of space, I'd be fine with that," Vexus said with the same trembling voice.

"That was unexpected," Jenny said.

"My pride has vanished. Living alone has taught me that really am no better than anyone else. I often thought I was above or immune to the possibility of me being on the receiving end of some violent act that would ruin my life and end the lives of everyone I cared about. I didn't really care about anyone in that way, so I thought all of that was beneath me. I tried many times to keep myself from imagining what it's like to live on your end of the spectrum, but I really couldn't. I'm beginning to understand now how you all must've felt when I destroyed so many of your loved ones. Seeing how that little boy was hurting so badly when he couldn't wake his dead mother hurts me to this day. I hate how the only thing I managed to do with my life is cause so much pain. I wasted over a thousand years on selfishness. I don't really know how to relate to your suffering, but I only wish there was a way to give back everything I've stolen and repair all the damage I've caused. I've done too much…to even be given the chance…to try," Vexus said before finally burying her face in her hands and crying like she's never cried before.

The United States president was still in the White House at the time this was taking place, and she could hear the entire conversation between everyone in that room. She could hear everyone's reaction to Vexus's crying. Even the president herself didn't expect this. Her eyes even began to water. When Vexus's crying finally calmed some, she pressed the button on the console in front of her and her face showed up on Ms. Wakeman's computer screen.

"I didn't think you planned to say anything in this conversation, Ms. President," Jenny said.

"Let me guess, they sent you to pass judgment on me?" Vexus guessed.

"You're wrong about one thing. You did do something worthwhile in your life. You not only saved that little boy's life, you managed to help prevent the extinction of the human race. The credit was given to XJ's 1-9, Ms. Wakeman, Sheldon Lee, Melody Locus, and Skyway Patrol, but no one wanted to even mention your part in it. It was only later that certain citizens began to send in letters and e-mails regarding your role in saving the world. They wanted the mainstream media to recognize what you did, but they refused. Not one government in the world wanted to recognize your help because of your record. We humans fear pain to point where most of us are willing to hold the most ruthless grudges…unwilling to forgive. We don't know how much of a threat Phoenix was, but you did manage to play a key part in his retreat. For those things, I thank you. As a person, I forgive you, but as President, I cannot so easily do that. Based on the votes that have come in, you will be given the opportunity to redeem yourself. You will however be placed under tight restriction and will be sentenced to global services such as reconstruction and defense if it is determined that you can handle it. Those two things are the only things I know for sure you will be sentenced with. Any other requirements of you will be determined in the near future. You will be upgraded and expected to fight in this war. Any attempts to attack any of us without a good reason to defend yourself from an unjust action by any individual or group, or trying to conquer our world in the future will be a breach in our agreement a will result in a new trial an you will be judged according to the crime or crimes committed. Do you understand what I am saying to you?" the president asked.

"Yes, I do?" Vexus answered.

"Good. The upgrading process will begin as soon as you and Ms. Wakeman are ready. Just remember, do not take this favor lightly. You said you wanted to try to make amends for your transgressions, so we expect you to deliver. You will hear from any of our representatives again very soon. Good luck in the fight out there. For now, I must tend to other matters. Good day," the president concluded before the screen returned to the image that was displayed before the president interrupted.

"So much is happening so fast. I honestly didn't think I would be spared. I'm glad that I have been given another chance. I plan to make it up to all of you. I'm ready any time you are ready Nora," Vexus said.

"First, I need to tell you that I did seriously consider killing you. I lost friends and a few cousins to your tyranny as well. It's going to be very difficult for me to see you as anything but that ruthless murderer you once were. Pain like this does not go away easily. However…you did play a great part in motivating me to build my daughters, and that is something to thank you for. Who would ever imagine, though, that the very idea that was meant to destroy you ended up saving you. I guess it's true that they are not merely weapons, but they also have the ability to be saviors. You have caused me to reevaluate life twice. I'm giving you this second chance. Please don't blow it for yourself," Ms. Wakeman said.

"Thank you very much. I apologize for all the pain I've caused you. I forgive you for all the pain you caused me, and if you don't want to forgive me, I'll except it," Vexus said before wiping the tears from her eyes and face.

Ms. Wakeman turned and stared directly at Vexus with an obviously angry expression.

A second later, she turned away from Vexus and said "I'll be ready in an hour. I still need to wait for some parts to arrive."

* * *

As Ms. Wakeman spent her time improving Vexus's body, Jenny had to rush to yet another Maverick attack. This time, the attack was in Tremorton of all places.

"This must be an insult or something. I see they're not crazy enough to attack our house. My mom's house is like a battleship," Jenny said as she headed towards the scene.

She was feeling a certain amount of confidence knowing skilled warriors like X and Zero were helping her out, only in this case, they are scheduled to be quite late due to a mandatory meeting with a few government officials. The other XJ's were still practicing with battlefield simulations so they could get used to their upgrades.

As soon as she saw smoke, her eyes widened, and then she asked "Why did it have to be the orphanage?"

When she arrived on the scene, she noticed something odd. There were thousands of rose petals lying around everywhere. She stopped a few of the people running from the scene and asked them where to find the Maverick. They told her to check the park beside the orphanage. She arrive to see a male humanoid reploid with a mostly green and black body, a white mask over the bottom half of his face only revealing his eyes, and bright red mechanical rose petals sticking out of his head appearing to be his hair. He was sitting on a bench, and as soon as he noticed Jenny approaching, he smiled under his mask. She could tell that he was smiling.

"Why do you seem so happy?" Jenny asked.

"Happy is definitely the word. You are as cute in person as you are on television," he replied.

Jenny blushed a little and thought to herself "_His voice is so sexy. I hate the fact that I know he's a bad guy_."

"Okay, look…I can see that you're interested in me, but I can tell you've been sent here to destroy me. If that is the case, then why bother showing your interest?" Jenny asked.

The reploid laughed and said "Destroy you. I wasn't sent here to do that. Before we continue, I must introduce myself. My name is Axel The Red; not to be confused with that Hunter named Axl."

"Okay, Axel; if you're not here to destroy me, then what are you here for?" Jenny asked.

"My commander, Sigma, has become interested in you as well, though not in the way I am. You see, a person with a virtually undefeated track record as yours is exactly the kind of person he admires. You managed to live through countless battles against your enemies, and you defeated all of them, with the exception of that one incident with a former friend of yours. I forget her name sometimes, but that's not important. He feels as though it's time for you to hear our side of the story that those two Maverick Hunters didn't tell you. In our world, we have fought hard to gain the same rights and privileges that humans have for a long time now. There came a time when we realized that humans were just incapable of understanding that the fact that we have life the way they do entitles us to those rights. They are selfish and are willing to deny that we are on the same level that they are simply because they don't want to have to compete with someone else for resources, status, etc. We decided that since they operate on such primitive principles, they have forfeited their self-proclaimed right to called superior. In all honesty, I was never able to see their so-called superiority. I'm sure a woman of your stature can understand where I'm coming from. Not only that, they constantly make new laws that try to limit our potential for growth. Imagine that; a limit designed specifically to keep themselves superior to feed their little false sense of security. We couldn't except such a thing, so the so-called Mavericks were born. We rebelled against such a terrible fate. Now are starting to understand why we did what we did?" Axel asked.

Jenny paused for a moment, and then said "I do understand. I haven't lived it, but I can say that I would be pretty upset if a law was passed to limit me. However, it seems as though you conveniently left out some details. Why is it that you continuously attack the humans even after the law was thrown out?"

"Huh?" Axel asked.

"Don't play dumb. X explained it to me. The humans needed law abiding reploids to defend them, so a group of them formed the group called the Maverick Hunters. And since the only way to fight the Mavericks effectively was to be able to continue upgrading themselves, the law was thrown out only because they didn't have a choice. So why do you continue to attack them?" Jenny asked.

"It's because we know that if there is some kind of peaceful agreement made, or a treaty if you will, the humans would still try to find a way to limit us," Axel answered.

"If you're so concerned about that, then why don't you guys just move to an area to live by yourselves. You can't seem to get along with each other, so why not leave?" Jenny asked.

"To do that, we would have to have the humans in the area leave. That goes to say that the only places for us to go that aren't inhabited by humans are places where all of the natural resources with any value have been taken. How long do you think you would survive in the middle of a desert or some other form of wasteland?" Axel asked.

Jenny closed her eyes and sighed.

A moment later, she opened her eyes and replied "Not very long. It's just…well…why didn't you just try to continue trying to persuade the humans to come to an agreement that you both can agree upon?"

"We considered that, but then we realized that humans just aren't capable of coming to such an agreement. What it really boiled down to was that we let the humans know that since they not only brought us into that world beyond our control, and then have the nerve to say that we were meant only for servitude, we were going to fight for our right to live a life where we can work toward a great future, even if it meant that we would do it violently if necessary," Axel answered.

"I get where you're coming from. I just don't understand why you feel it necessary to resort to mass murder," Jenny said angrily.

"The reason…is because we are at war. That's how war is: both sides refusing to give an inch, or lose an inch, resulting in the inevitable need to take what you need by force. If they have to die for me to get what I need to live, then so be it," Axel explained.

"Why are you switching your story around? You didn't say this was about survival until now," Jenny pointed out.

"I didn't say anything about surviving. I want to live, as in, I want to live my life to the fullest and reach my highest potential, uninhibited by the rules of primitive beings that are jealous of the fact that reploid evolution is leaving them behind. We are working towards a bright future where reploids can create a utopia for themselves. Humans have a bad tendency to drag everyone else down with them in order to make themselves feel as though they are greater that they really are. That way of thinking itself is poisoning themselves and everything they come in contact with. We reploids and anyone else who shares our vision are constantly trying to find ways to improve ourselves and everything else around us. When you finally realize that humans have virtually no chance of doing away with their destructive behavior, you then realize that in order to end the destruction, you must get rid of the humans, or at least the selfish destructive ones. It is the only logical thing to do. I have little reason to believe that you haven't realized this yourself, and Sigma shares my view about you. Sigma has sent me here to ask you to join us in a bright future that's ahead of us. I…am asking you to join us," Axel requested.

"You don't get it, do you? What you are asking for is too much. You can't expect humans to allow so many of you to progress so much without them being sure that they also have enough resources to survive on. Your fabulous new evolved bodies would require too much energy to maintain themselves for there to be enough resources left to sustain the humans' bodies. You have the ability to evolve quickly. There's no question about that. It's just that everyone else who can't keep up will eventually die. That's why nature has a balance; to prevent that from happening. I know that humans are selfish and self-destructive, but killing them is not the answer. They have made progress, and they still need time to improve," Jenny explained.

"That is far too much time to wait. There's no guarantee that they will ever improve that much. To ensure a safe and prosperous future, extreme measures must be taken. It sounds harsh, but that's the way it is," Axel added as he raised his voice slightly.

"I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to decline your offer. I can see what you people are after now. You told me probably without realizing it. You said you want to live your life to the fullest, but what you really mean to say is that you want to insure that you are able to see that brave new world Sigma speaks of within your lifetime even at the cost of all human life if necessary. The truth…is that you're just as selfish as the humans you complain about. Yes they are selfish, but I also happen to know that many of them in your world have learned that they were headed down the same path that you are now, and that's why they have started to compromise and have learned to live long side plenty of the reploids. That is the only sensible explanation for so many of them living with each other. You didn't seem to mention that part, now did you? You tasted an unfair amount of power and are not willing to give it up, and that's why you're making excuses to cover your own selfishness," Jenny said.

Axel sighed and said "It's a shame…really. We had such high hopes for you. You would have been a great addition to our team. I had such high hopes for you. It saddens me that such a beautiful person such as you must go to waste."

Suddenly, Jenny noticed a surge of energy surround her body. She then noticed a bright pink light concentrating around her body and pushing her limbs together restraining her. Letting out a scream, she tried with a great deal of effort to free herself. Even her lips were restrained. Now she was frightened.

"That's why I left all of these rose petals everywhere. I made a perimeter around this area to make my new restraining ability most effective. Not only that, you can't call for backup because all radio frequencies are being blocked. It really didn't have to be this way. I was hoping that one day we could be together, but I see that it wasn't meant to be. By the way, we're not destroying your body; just your mind. Your technology will be quite useful to us. The beauty I saw in you was not merely physical. It was also your personality. Without that, you would only be a machine to me. That is your fate now. Hold on, what are you staring at?" Axel asked.

He turned around at the last moment and caught a flying metal trash can top with his right hand. He then looked at the person who threw it at him.

"Who are you?" he asked aloud.

"_What is Grace doing here? She's going to get herself killed by this maniac_," Jenny thought to herself.

Grace continued walking towards Axel with a furious expression on her face.

"You don't need to answer that. You do need to learn some respect for a superior being," Axel said angrily.

"You really…are crazy," Grace commented.

Axel threw the top back at her knocking her down. Jenny wasn't confident that Grace was dead, so she didn't panic. Axel walked over to where Grace lay, and picked her up by her shirt collar. He pulled her face close to his but a little below.

"What…exactly did a pathetic young girl like you think you could do to hurt me? I should kill you now," Axel said.

Grace noticed that there was blood coming from an open wound on her face. Fearing for her life, she flexed the muscles in her left arm and swung it as hard as she could. Jenny's eyes widened when she saw a ripple form in Graces arm that started from her shoulder and worked its way up to her fist. At the moment of impact, her fist was three times its normal size. The punch was hard enough to throw Axel's body nine feet away. Pieces of his mask and face were seen flying through the air.

Both of them lying on the ground, Axel yelled "That's impossible. There's no way she's able to do that. She's only human."

Grace rose to her feet as quickly as she could. Jenny, Grace and Axel looked on in surprise when they all saw that Grace's left forearm and fist were swollen to at least three times their normal size, her fist being slightly larger.

Terrified, Grace yelled "What…the fuck is…this? What the hell is going on?"

As she questioned this, the biceps, triceps, and shoulders on that same arm increased in size. Fearing for his life, Axel screamed and charged after her head on trying to end her life. Her body seemed to act on its own causing her to dodge at a superhumanly fast speed. She then punched a hole through Axel's chest and out his back. The force of this punch separated his shoulders and head from the rest of his body. He could no longer produce enough energy to restrain Jenny, so the light disappeared. Jenny remained motionless from her shock.

As Axel's eyes began to lose their light, he asked "Why…did this happ…?"

As his body lay there dead, Jenny ran over to a now freaking out Grace. Grace put her hand on her face to find that her wound had already healed.

"Do you have any idea how…?" Jenny yelled.

"No! I have no clue," Graced yelled in response.

"I don't know what to do?" Jenny yelled as she began panicking.

Several people saw this from a distance and were very concerned and very frightened. One person walked over to them.

"What the…hell are you still…doing here, Jason? You could've been hurt," Grace yelled angrily.

"I came to see if there is anything I can do to help. Now that I think about, I don't know how to handle this situation at all. I just reacted to the fact that you were in distress, so I ran over here. I didn't think that through. But I see now why you're in distress. I'm just going to guess wildly and say that the best thing that might help for now is to just try to calm down as much as possible," Jason said somewhat frantically.

Grace thought about it for a second, then closed her eyes and began taking slow deep breaths. A few moments later, the swelling went back down and the shape of her arm finally returned to normal.

Jason grinned and asked "So Grace did all of that, huh? It was hard to tell from that far away, but I think I'm guessing it right."

"Why are you grinning?" Jenny asked.

Grace looked up at Jason puzzled, and Jason replied "Nothing could be done to prove my theory, but I know now that when I thought her past was much more complicated than even she realized, I was right. You told me not to ask you about your past, and at first, I thought you knew everything. When you freaked out in the cafeteria, I noticed that you seemed confused as to why you freaked out so much. Now I see that you're freaking out with this. Not just that…but I actually happen to think it's kinda cool. I probably sound crazy to you right now," Jason said while still grinning.

"Cool? This could be really dangerous," Jenny said.

Grace grinned a little and said "You've always been one to…find the bright side of these…kinds of things, haven't…you? Don't answer that. I need to go…visit your mother, Jenny."

Grace's grin disappeared and Jenny asked "Why her? I should be taking you to a hospital."

"No fuckin' way…am I…going to a…hospital. They'll probably drag me away…somewhere and do experiments…on me. I need her to analyze…me. Besides, I just killed…one of Sigma's men. I'm sure…they know it was me, and they will be after me," Grace explained.

"Okay then, I'll carry you there. It'll be much faster that way. Hold on…why are you here anyway, Jason?" Jenny asked.

"Oh yeah; that. I was in the area heading towards the corner store down the street over there for a specific item that they don't sell on my side of town with a few of my cousins. I remember seeing Grace looking out of a window, and she saw me too. A couple of seconds later, that green guy came rampaging through the area, so we scattered. I stayed long enough to see if everyone else left the orphanage. I had no idea Grace would try to come back here. I followed her until I saw this scene taking place. I didn't think I stood a chance against that guy, so I froze. That was the first time I've seen you run, and you can run really fast, Grace," Jason commented.

Grace had no response.

"Okay then; whatever. We need to leave this place, now," Jenny said.


	22. Chapter 22

On their way to where Ms. Wakeman was, Jenny could tell changes were taking place inside of Grace's body, especially since she had trouble keeping still.

"I…wish I could make carrying…me easier for you, but I can't keep my body…still," Grace said frantically.

"Don't worry about it. It is a little more difficult than usual to concentrate on flying properly, but it's not too bad," Jenny said.

Suddenly, they were both hit with a powerful blast of wind sending them both spiraling towards the ground. By the time they slowed down a little, it was too late for Jenny to execute a smooth landing. The landing was so rough that Grace slipped out of Jenny's grasp. Jenny rolled a few times before stopping. She quickly rose to her feet and looked up to see a male reploid that had a humanoid shape with the head of a bird and large mechanical wings.

"And who might you be?" Jenny asked.

"The name's Storm Eagle, and I'm sure you've guessed by now, that I've been sent here in response to Axel's death by that girl's hands. My mission is to destroy both of you, and in no particular order. Prepare yourselves," S. Eagle replied.

Jenny thought that now was a good time to try out her buster arm transformation. She pointed her right arm at S. Eagle and activated her buster.

"That was not expected," S. Eagle said.

"That's right. Thanks to X and Zero, a way was made for me to be outfitted with a certain degree of reploid technology. I call it the J-Buster. I'm still getting used to it," Jenny explained.

"But will it save you?" S. Eagle said as he dashed after them from the air.

Jenny fired the weapon at S. Eagle but the blast was dodged as he ascended. Jenny was still trying to get used to the recoil and the timing. She continued trying to aim at him as she discovered how fast his flying was. He maneuvered so easily. Jenny began firing smaller blasts with her other arm as she began focusing on trying to aim her buster properly. S. Eagle swooped down and landed behind Grace with his weapon pointed at the back of her head.

"Bastard!" Grace yelled.

"That's not fair. Fight me like a man," Jenny demanded.

"This is war. There's no room for fighting in a gentleman-like manner. I bet there's no way you can stop me in time," S. Eagle challenged.

X's voice sounded from the top of a roof saying "Don't even try it, Storm Eagle."

Not attempting to take his eyes off of Jenny, S. Eagle said "I know you have your weapon pointed at me, X. Tell me, how is it that you managed to show up in the nick of time? It's eerily like a scene from a movie. Never mind that. I wonder…if either of you can actually save this girl," S. Eagle said.

"What exactly are you getting out of this anyway? Why did you change so much?" X asked with a concerned tone.

"The real question is what are you getting out of this, X? You say you want peace: an end to war. You say you want to see a world where everyone can get along with each other: a world where people can look past each other's differences and work towards a bright future. I want the same thing. The problem is that not everybody shares that same vision. I don't understand people. No one really seems to care about each other as much as they claim to. What I've witnessed is a disgusting endlessly repeating cycle of everyone trying to find ways to get over on each other. Everyone's always trying to get the biggest slice of the pie even at the expense of others. By defeating us, the only thing you'll really accomplish is preserving that terrible cycle. If we win, the cycle will still continue. People don't really change. It doesn't matter if you are flesh or robot. There is, however, one thing about Commander Sigma's plan that I admire. He has realized that the main reason why people fight each other so much is because of a lack of resources. If you read your history, so many wars have been fought because both sides lacked the resources they either required for survival or what they felt they were entitled to. Sigma plans to eventually eliminate the resource problem, and believe it or not, he's managed to make progress," S. Eagle explained.

Zero's voice was heard from another rooftop saying "Listen to yourself. Even if that were the case, how does that justify killing humans? Wouldn't it be better to share this well of unlimited resources with everyone: human's and reploids?"

"Sigma knows that in order to make that dream a reality, the humans must be exterminated. They have been proven to slow down progress and ruin everything they manage to get their hands on. They behave like viruses," S. Eagle explained.

"Viruses? What the hell do you mean?" Jenny asked.

"Humans do very…little to…preserve nature's balance. If it weren't…for…the very small percentage of us…that do try…the rest of us would use…up all of our resources and we'd become extinct. Jenny, when was the last time…any human you know…personally even took the time out to grow so…much as a flower or vegetable? Do they know…how to raise animals that aren't pets? Most people these…days are totally reliant…on that small portion of the population that…prepare our food and living arrangements…to do it for them. Isn't that why you…were created: to do our dirty work? Isn't that…why the humans…of their world built them? And what do…we do to show…our thanks? We discard them…once their…usefulness has run out. We don't…behave exactly like viruses, but we are very similar," Grace explained.

"You are one of the few humans that seems to understand this. Even so, evolution will take far too long for all of you to learn this. By then, you will have already destroyed and ruined so much. There are many times more of you than us, and that adds up to the likelihood of a lot more destruction than what we'd be responsible for. That's why we have to do this," S. Eagle added.

"Destruction is still destruction, and killing is still killing, regardless of how you try to justify it or dress it up. Yes, there are going to be those who make bad choices either based on their circumstances that society doesn't see, and yes, there are going to be those who kill for personal gain, but there is no justification for killing them," Zero explained.

A furious expression shown on S. Eagle's face and he yelled "What the hell are you talking about? You've killed many times the amount of reploids that I've killed in humans, and you're trying to make me seem like the monster here. And don't you give me that 'I had no choice' crap."

Jenny then yelled "All right! Stop the bullshit. I can see that you can't be reasoned with. I made a commitment to take her with me somewhere and to further prepare for the war, so I no longer have the time to waste with you. I'm gonna have to end this now."

S. Eagle focused his attention on Jenny and asked "My weapon is pointed directly at the back of her head, so what makes you think you think you can do anything about this in time?"

"I plan to do it like this," Jenny yelled as several blades that obviously looked like Jenny's technology erupted from the ground and shredded his arm cannon into many pieces.

S. Eagle then yelled "I didn't know…you were capable of that."

Grace took this opportunity to run for cover.

S. Eagle then screamed "I WILL FINISH MY MISSION!"

Within that moment, Jenny saw the veins in his eyes swell up. His body glowed with an almost blinding light as everyone else prepared for the worst. He let out a final scream as his body exploded. The next thing Jenny, X, and Zero knew, they were all inside of a huge swirling vortex with shards of his body and everything else the wind could pick up crashing into their bodies. Grace hid herself inside of a dumpster, so she was fine. After taking quite a bit of damage to their armors, X fired several high powered shots at the base of the tornado casing it to disperse.

"_I'm not going to like this part_," X thought to himself.

At the moment of dispersal, all three of them were sent flying in different directions. X was sent high into the air and landed on a roof about a city block away. Jenny and Zero were sent, to both their surprises, into the same apartment. Fortunately, it was vacant with a bunch of empty cardboard boxes lying around to reduce the force of their impacts. A moment later, Jenny asked "You okay over there, man?"

Zero laughed a little and replied "Yeah…I'm fine. That was a move that I know he didn't have the last time we met. What an upgrade? You think it's time we checked up on your classmate?"

"Mmm…hmm!" Jenny answered.

As they regained their composures, Zero said "Don't worry about X. He'll be here soon."

After jumping out of the window and landing, they headed over to where Grace was. They were a little surprised to see that X was already ahead of them helping Grace out of the dumpster.

"You're pretty quick, X," Jenny commented.

"I guess so. I didn't think about it that way. I was just concerned about her safety. Thanks anyway," X replied.

When Grace's feet touched the ground, she looked around at all of their damages and said "I envy you. You don't feel pain…the way we…do."

"Wait! That injury was just recent, wasn't it?" Zero asked while pointing at the dried blood on Grace's face.

Grace rubbed her face and answered "It was."

"That's why I'm carrying her to see mom. As you can see, this is a total surprise to her as well. I can't think of why she was able to heal so quickly," Jenny explained.

"I was wondering about the same thing myself. I just didn't decide to ask about it," X added.

"Okay then. I think it's time to head back," Jenny said.

"By the way, Jenny. That was smart thinking. You managed to save her life," Zero complimented with a smile.

"Thanks," Jenny said with a slight blush that didn't show on her face.


	23. Chapter 23

Ms. Wakeman finished doing a thorough scan on Grace's body. Grace finally sat up awaiting the diagnosis.

A moment of silence followed before XJ5 asked "What's wrong, mom?"

"Life is strange. Who would've ever thought I would be one to get so directly involved in these things. Well, I'm not really sure what's wrong with you. All I'm able to determine is that your DNA and cellular structure is different from ordinary humans," Ms. Wakeman answered.

"I figured that…much. How…different are we…talking?" Grace asked.

"Well, I've discovered that you are still human, so that's not the issue. It's just that your DNA and cellular structure is more tightly wound together than ordinary humans, many times over. Beyond that, I can't determine why it's allowing you to do the amazing things you did. It's as though…that there is a portion of your makeup that can't be properly scanned as well. My equipment seems to be incapable," Ms. Wakeman answered slightly embarrassed.

"What the hell am…I? You say I'm human, but how can…that be?" Grace asked with a slight tremble in her voice.

"I have some of the best equipment in the world. I'm probably your best bet when it comes to finding out, but even I can't tell you a meaningful answer. I've read every relevant piece of source material for unusual cases in human anatomy, and I haven't seen this. This is, to my knowledge, something totally new," Ms. Wakeman answered.

Grace raised her voice and said "First this, and now I find out you've been…ordered to upgrade Vexus. What the…hell am I supposed to…believe in now?"

Another moment of silence followed, and then Zero replied "I don't know what to tell you. I'd be lying if I told you I knew. I've lived and fought for more than a century now, and even I don't know what to believe in. The reality is…that life is often unfair and filled with mystery and uncertainty. I don't really spend a lot of time wondering about such things. The only thing that's really kept me going all this time is…"

Grace cut him off by yelling "What the hell…do you know? You're…not the ones who have to deal with pain…and the reality that…your existence is so fragile…the way we do. How can you possibly know what I'm going through?"

XJ4 then yelled "And just what is that supposed to mean? We…"

Grace cut her off by yelling "Just shut up. Leave me alone."

Grace got up and ran out of the room. Jenny had never seen her like this before the entire time she knew her.

"I'll go after her" Jenny volunteered.

"No! I need you here to finish repairing you. XJ6, you go after her. Don't argue with me. Just do it," Ms. Wakeman ordered.

XJ6 sighed and walked out of the room irritated.

"It's a good thing she's been ordered to stay in this building until further notice. Now that your repairs are finished, Zero, I need you to go and keep an eye on Vexus. As you know, I don't really trust her. Tell XJ8 that she is relieved while you're at it," Ms. Wakeman said.

As soon as the robotic arms that were repairing Zero retracted, he stood up and headed for the door saying "It's not like I have anything better to do."

* * *

About a minute later, XJ6 found the person she was chasing. She could tell by the sound of her crying, but she couldn't see her because she had locked herself inside of a restroom.

"_Give me a fuckin' break_," XJ6 thought to herself.

* * *

Vexus could hear a man's voice telling XJ8 that she's been relieved, but the voice was unfamiliar. The room was long like a hallway so Vexus couldn't see who it was from her position. The computers in the room were still scanning her body and trying to determine possibilities for her upgrade.

As soon as the door closed, she asked "So who is the person sent to supervise me this time?"

She heard the footsteps getting closer until he came into view.

Happily surprised, she said "It's you! The one called Zero."

A little surprised himself, he asked "Umm…why do you seem happy to see me?"

"It's just that, I remember seeing your performance in the news…and well…you were pretty amazing. I didn't think I'd get to seriously meet you in person, at least not so soon," Vexus answered fighting hard to keep herself from blushing.

"Umm…well…I don't really consider myself to be amazing…by any means. I just do my job to the best of my ability," Zero said while trying to keep himself from feeling awkward.

Zero picked up a chair and sat it about ten feet in front of the table Vexus lay on.

After sitting, Zero said "I have nothing better to do right now other than my assignment to watch you, and I kind of feel like talking with someone, if that's okay with you."

"That's fine," Vexus replied.

"I've heard quite a bit about you, and I've become interested to hear your side of the story. I guess…what I mean to say is…X and I have been through hell and back more times than I care to remember trying to find ways to understand why 'villains' as some like to call people like what your reputation describes you as being become the way you have been for most of your life. We really haven't gotten any solid answers from anyone the entire time we've been fighting Mavericks because we're constantly in the middle of fighting to the death to get anything out of them," Zero said.

"Did Nora or Jenny put you up to this? Or was it your partner, X?" Vexus asked.

After seeing the somewhat angry look in her eyes, Zero replied "Okay…I'm sorry I pushed that issue so hard. It's just…a lot of the Mavericks I've been forced to kill…they were my friends at one point…until they started listening to that manipulative monster, Sigma."

"I get the feeling you rarely show this much emotion over the issue," Vexus guessed.

"Yeah. I guess you're right. The thing is…I saw the recording of when you apologized for all of the terrible things you've done, but I haven't seen any of the Mavericks do what you did. How is it that you can see the error of your ways, but they can't?" Zero asked.

"I wish I had an answer that was useful for you, but I don't. I can try this approach to help you understand a little better though. Why did you decide to become a Hunter?" Vexus asked.

"I didn't expect that question. You're the third person to ask that on a personal level. I…it's hard to…" Zero replied.

Vexus cut him off by saying "You said the answer without even realizing it. It's personal. I don't know what your society or commanding officers have taught you, but each and every 'Maverick' as you call them has their own personal reason for doing what they do. From what I've gathered, you keep getting a lot of nonsense drilled into your heads about the issue revolving around some kind of error in their programming. About a year and half ago, a very naïve Jenny thought that might be what was wrong with me. We're not the only ones. If you look at human history, you'll find that plenty of them thought that there must be something wrong with the way someone else with a different view of the world was made. Believe it or not, every decision is personal regardless of the 'official explanation.' This, of course applies to anything intelligent enough to think for itself. There is, however, the issue of brainwashing. I've even used many techniques throughout my reign as queen. It seems that Sigma is likely brainwashing at least most of them. Robots and humans can be literally brainwashed, but the process is usually ineffective because they can't fight with any passion or experience. Persuasion is a better term to describe what Sigma has done. I've come to realize that he is a very charismatic person to have persuaded that many people to follow his vision. Regardless of how brainwashed they may seem, their decision is personal. On the other hand, if they've, let's say, been infected by a virus, and can no longer think for themselves, then yes, they have been literally brainwashed. The reason I can't give you an answer that's useful is because, even if you persuade them to try to give you their personal reason, they may not be able to explain it to you in terms that you can understand. At the end of the day, what you'll have to have accomplished, is showing them that their ways are wrong in terms that they can understand. Beyond that, you will have to also persuade them to abandon Sigma. I understand that doing so is difficult, but I don't have any better advice than what I've given you."

A moment later, Zero said "I've never heard it explained to me in that way before. Thanks for the advice. They've been so quick to attack us as soon as we find them…"

Vexus cut him off again by saying "As if they were ordered to…in order to prevent you from trying to persuade them, probably without them realizing it themselves. I've done the same thing he's done for more than a millennium. My personal reason was a false sense of superiority. I somehow convinced myself of that, and that that entitled me to rule over all inferior beings. In the end, I found that I really wasn't as great as I thought I was. Whoever said ignorance is bliss was right. It's when you realize your ignorance; that's when the bliss disappears. In my case, I realize that my bliss was a necessary loss. I'll have to find a new way to be happy. I can't speak for your lost friends. I don't know what their personal motivations were."

"Thanks again," Zero said.

"But enough of all of this depressing atmosphere. Why don't we talk about you? I hope you have a personal life other than your job," Vexus said.

"I…do. I'm sorry, you're not the only one…who's reminded me that I'm a workaholic. I do have that personal life, but I usually choose to volunteer for missions even during my time off. You're probably asking why. It's difficult to explain. The bright side is that's why I became an S-Class Hunter so quickly."

"I'm assuming X is the same way," Vexus guessed.

"Not exactly. People often assume I'm more laid back than he is. In fact, he works harder than I do. I just work more often, but not by much. He was classified as B-Class for a long time because of his questionable nature. I always viewed him as being a better hunter than me. Believe it or not, I haven't beaten him in a sparring match in a long time. His reflexes are amazing. He does take more time off than I do for leisure…to settle your curiosity," Zero explained.

Vexus grinned and asked "My next question is…do you happen to have maybe…a significant other back home?"

"Where did that come from?" Zero asked surprised.

"Have you ever heard a group of girls talking with each other?" Vexus asked.

"Oh, so it's like that, huh? Well, I don't…actually," Zero answered.

"Why not?" Vexus asked.

"Wait! Actually, I'd rather not go into it. It's a long story," Zero replied.

"All right, fine. Would you happen to be looking for someone?" Vexus asked.

"Not really," Zero answered.

"That's a shame. I think someone like you could use some…stress relief," Vexus said with a wide grin followed by a giggle.

Zero blushed slightly and said "So it's like that, huh? You have a naughty mind, you know that?"

"I sure do!" Vexus said followed by a louder laugh.

A moment later, Zero chuckled a little himself.

* * *

XJ6 finally found the courage to knock on the door.

After knocking, she asked "Are you okay in their?"

Grace then yelled "Do I sound…okay to you?"

"Well…no, but…" XJ6 answered.

"Then why…the fuck did you ask?" Grace yelled back cutting her off.

"What the hell is your problem?" XJ6 asked angrily.

"You already know?" Grace yelled.

"No, I don't. Look, I've known people to tell me that I have an eerily fucking advanced ability to see through people's facades, and I know you've been hiding something: something big. I know we just met, but I can see right through that hardcore looking expression on your face and tell that you're hiding something," XJ6 said carefully trying not to be loud.

Suddenly, the door opened and Grace pulled her inside locking the door behind her.

With a furious expression, she pointed her finger at XJ6 and said "I warn you. Do NOT…press the issue with anyone…else or I will kick your ass. I know you know…what I did to that Axel mother fucker."

Not saying a word, XJ6 slowly started crying.

Realizing that she pushed it too far, Grace put her hand down and said "I'm sorry."

Barely able to speak properly, XJ6 said "I promi…I promise I won't tell…anybody. I just want to know…what I…can d…can do to help…"

XJ6 couldn't hold it in any longer as she started crying hard.

Grace started panicking and said "I said I'm sorry. Please stop. Please stop…crying."

Impulsively, Grace hugged XJ6 and said "I'm sorry. I won't…hurt you. Please stop crying."

A couple of moments later, XJ6 whispered "Please! Tell me what's wrong."

"Before I do…you have to promise me…you won't tell anyone unless it is a dire situation," Grace said firmly.

"You have my word," XJ6 promised.

"Okay. I intend…to hold you…to that. You are…XJ6, if I remember…correctly, right? Grace asked.

"That's right," XJ6 answered.

Grace took a deep breath to calm down some, and then said "The story goes…like this."

* * *

When Grace and XJ6 finally returned to the room where everyone else was, a sigh of relief was heard from a few people when they saw that Grace was calm again.

"This is…a huge change in my life…for me to…deal with. I haven't gotten over it…necessarily…but I do apologize…for snapping…at you. XJ6 helped me as much…as she could, and I thank her for that," Grace explained.

"All right! That's good. As far as your stay here is concerned, you are not yet allowed to leave this place. Try to remember that this is not my choice. We need to know if it is safe for you to be around people first before you are released. If you happen to get angry and accidently kill people, people would suddenly want to see you detained indefinitely. You need to somehow learn to control your newfound strength better. Plus, it was decided that it would be wrong to expect you to help fight in this war. That part…is up to you," Ms. Wakeman explained.

Grace growled a little and said "It figures. That's what I get…for losing my…temper against that…psychotic lover boy."

"So, you weren't trying to help after all, were you?" Jenny asked with a slightly angry grin.

"Of course not. I still don't like you. You should've known that that was the reason for him putting all of those petals on the ground. The reason I attacked him…was because of their selfish ideals…and because a friend of mine…was molested and murdered by…a bastard that said that he thought they…should be together forever just like Axel said to…you. We were both roommates in the psychiatric…hospital I spent most of…my life in. I was eight at the time, and she was nine. Surprised? That's the kind…of reality I've had to live…with for years. So I do one noble thing…and I get institutionalized again. WHERE THE FUCK IS THE JUSTICE IN THIS WORLD, HUH? CAN ANY OF YOU KNOW-IT-ALLS ANSWER THAT?" Grace screamed.

A moment later, a wide-eyed Jenny said "I'm so sorry. I didn't know."

"Of course you didn't…know. I haven't told…anyone about it until now. That's the way it always is. You intentionally try to point…out some flaw of mine, I knock you back down…off that pedestal…you put yourself on, you suddenly feel humbled, and then you…apologize because now you feel…like the bad guy," Grace yelled.

"I feel ashamed. I thought you were angry all the time because…I thought the worst of your problems was mistreatment by your peers. Now I see your life is a lot more complicated than I thought. I'm really sorry," Jenny corrected.

Grace calmed down some and then said "I can tell you're sincerely sorry by the…sound of your voice, and I'm sorry for…yelling at you like that. I just wanted to give you an…illustration of the kind of suffering that we have…to deal with…everyday. When was the last time a robot was molested or raped? Did they ever have to live with that…reality for the rest…of their lives? You complain about discrimination, and I do too, but you make it seem…like that's the worst problem…to have to deal with. Compared to some of the horrifying…shit that I've seen, discrimination barely registers…as an insult. I know you witnessed…massive casualties in the last war, but I'd chose…death over some of the things I've…personally seen people have to live through. I thank you all for putting your…lives on the line for our sake. I really do. Just try to take some time out sometimes…and put yourselves in our shoes. Oh yeah, and Jenny, remember the time Ms. Wakeman installed those nerve…endings into your body. Remember the pain setting. Try to imagine living with that…constantly for years where the only relief…is morphine shots. You know what; I think I'm taking this too…far. I'm sorry about that. I'll be in the recreation room…if anyone needs me."

With that said, Grace walked out of the room slamming the door behind her.

"I can see that this is going to be a bad day for me," Jenny said.

"_I can tell that Grace was telling the truth when she said she only knew part of the story. Even she doesn't know the big picture, or what really started it all. She didn't bother to explain the part about the psychiatric hospital she lived in. I envy her though. She's quite strong to have seen the things she's seen without completely losing it_," XJ6 thought to herself.


	24. Chapter 24

Later on that day, about an hour after her repairs, Jenny decided that she needed time alone to herself, away from everyone else. It was fine considering the alarm and communicator built into her body. She flew over to Tremorton Park and found a bench to sit on and think about things for a while. She sat there with her eyes closed and thought about the situation they were all faced with. By this time, the sun had gown down for about two hours.

About ten minutes later, she heard footsteps. She assumed they belonged to a random person she didn't know considering the time of night and area of the park. They sounded odd, but they had familiar pattern. They sounded a little sloppy though. She finally opened her eyes to see a familiar face indeed.

"What are you doing here this time of night?" Jenny asked.

Sheldon looked in her direction and replied surprised "Oh Jenny, it's you. I guess I should ask you the same thing."

"So, you're not stalking me for once? Calm down, I was joking," Jenny said.

"Oh, okay. I thought you were being serious for a second. I'm sure you noticed the extra weight I'm carrying around. I call this armor I'm wearing the Mini-Shell. It looks awkward under my clothes, so I stayed out of public sight as much as possible. It's awkward to try to walk or run in, so I've been practicing to get used to it. I'd be a fool to think that I'm not also a target of the Mavericks. You seem…happier than usual to see me," Sheldon noticed.

Jenny stood up and hugged Sheldon.

In a slightly trembling voice, Jenny said "You have no idea what I've been through these past couple of days. Today was the worst. I can't turn to my own family right now because they are just as stressed as I am. I can't tell you all the details because of top secret security stuff, but…I need someone to talk to that has managed to keep themselves calm in this messed up situation."

Sheldon hugged her back and said "Don't worry about it. I'm here for you when you need it. I made that promise, and I'm keeping it."

Jenny pulled away from Sheldon only far enough to keep her hands on his shoulders. He could tell she was confused about something by the way her eyes were racing.

"Sheldon…you have always been…so nice to me. Even my own family…doesn't try as hard as you do. You really do mean it when you say you love me?" Jenny asked.

Sheldon blushed furiously and answered "Of course I do. Are you…okay?"

"I haven't had much time…to think about…the way I feel about you. I have thought about it a little bit lately though. I have to admit…that you are a really great guy. I don't remember a time when you've been an asshole to anyone who didn't do anything to deserve it," Jenny said with a slight smile.

"I try my best," Sheldon said.

Jenny's smile disappeared.

She looked down and said "Yes, well…that's good. I just wish I could say the same for myself. I've been made…painfully aware that I am quite the asshole myself. Don't you try to lie…just because you love me. I've treated people as though they were beneath me and as if my problems were greater than everyone else's for a long time now. I guess…what I'm really saying is; I'm finding out the hard way that, a lot of the things I thought were so important, are really just petty. Don't take this the wrong way. I'm not trying to kill myself again or anything. I only want to know how I'm supposed live with the realization, that I too, am a bad guy."

By this time, her voice was trembling.

Sheldon took a deep breath, and then said "I don't know how you arrived at that conclusion, but I can assure you that you are no bad guy. Bad guys don't attempt to recognize their faults and they don't try to find ways to overcome them. You may have been a bad guy by those standards before, but you're not anymore. Shoot; by those standards, everybody who falls under that category is a bad guy. In that case, I'm one of them in some respects. Robots aren't the only ones who have bugs to work out. By the way, thanks for thinking so highly of me."

"You're welcome. Thank you… for always trying to make me feel special. I really appreciate it. When this war is over, would you like to go out with me sometime?" Jenny asked with a smile.

Sheldon hesitated for a second, and then replied "I didn't expect…that. Of course, I would love to."

Jenny pulled him closer and kissed him on the cheek. She began pulling away, and was about to say something, when he suddenly lunged forward and kissed her lips. Shocked, she froze wide-eyed for a moment.

Sheldon pulled away suddenly and apologized frantically "I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have…"

Jenny cut him off by saying "Calm down. I'm not gonna hurt you. It's okay."

"I just…lost control," Sheldon explained nervously.

"You must've really been waiting for that for long time?" Jenny asked.

Sheldon was surprised to see her grin suddenly. Without warning, she kissed him back, and then wrapped her arms around him. A couple of seconds later, Sheldon hugged her back. They both lost control and started kissing each other passionately for about two minutes straight. When they finally pulled away from each other, Sheldon was breathing very heavily.

Smiling, Jenny said "I can't feel the same way your nerve endings can, but I did enjoy the new data my sensors processed. This really is the first time I kissed a guy like that. How did you like it?"

"I loved it. I never kissed a girl before you either, and I'm glad I have no one else to compare to," Sheldon replied.

"I'm glad you liked it. Why are you breathing differently all of a sudden? Oh, no," Jenny said as she realized why.

"Jenny. I don't want to lose you. I was afraid you might die against Smytus and Krackus, but I wasn't nearly as afraid as I am now. I don't want…to die either," Sheldon said as he began panicking.

Jenny's raised her now trembling voice and said "Believe me; I am so very afraid for my life. I don't want to die. I don't want you to die."

"This is the first time you've revealed your fear of death," Sheldon pointed out.

"I've never feared death much at all until recently. Now I'm terrified. I'm still so young. There is so much I want to do with my life," Jenny yelled.

Suddenly, they both heard a familiar female voice ask "Do you fear death because you feel like you're too young to die, or is it because you're realizing your vulnerability?"

Once they saw her clearly, Jenny said "Melody!"

A second later, Melody charged directly after Sheldon with her right fist pointed at his head. Jenny screamed and blocked the attack with her left hand. Sheldon stumbled backwards a few feet before stopping.

"I thought you were on our side," Sheldon yelled.

"I am. I had no intention of actually hitting you. I planned to stop within a few inches of contact, but I anticipated that Jenny would stop me. Listen to me, girl. I understand what you're going through, but this is something you must learn to deal with. I suddenly became aware of my vulnerability when my father died such a painful death. I'm also terrified that the Mavericks are going to wipe us all out. The last thing any of us can afford right now is allowing that fear to hinder us in battle. You put yourself on the line just now to save him. You felt as though he was worth fighting for. That's the kind of motivation you need, now more than ever, if you plan to make it through this. You used to be stronger than this. You still haven't fully regained all of your strength since you tried to kill yourself. Back then, you felt like you had something worth fighting for. You've spent so much time feeling ashamed of yourself and becoming pissed off about everyone's flaws that you've lost sight of what's important. It would break my heart to see you devastated because you couldn't save the people you care so much for. I've witnessed too much pain already. I'm begging you. Find your reason to fight again," Melody yelled.

Melody pulled her hand away from Jenny's grip and stood upright.

"My mom was the only one to mention the fact that my strength has yet to fully return since the attack. She mentioned it about a month ago. My body thinks it's at top performance, but I know better. You're right. I've spent way too much time feeling ashamed of myself. I need to find a way to let go of all of that baggage I've been dragging around. I have to get my old strength back," Jenny said firmly.

"No! You have to find a way to become even stronger. Renew your reason for fighting, and let that reason fuel your strength," Sheldon added.

"Yes! You're right. That's what I need to focus on," Jenny realized.

"It's good to see that you have more skills than just robotics. You're a good man," Melody complimented.

"You're the first person to call me a man. Thanks," Sheldon said.

"I don't care if they have the most powerful army we've ever faced, if they want to destroy us, I will defeat them," Jenny said angrily.

"Looks like you're remembering your old self again. That's great. We need all the help we can get. I was afraid to help you guys out before, but I realized that if I don't, I would inevitably be destroyed later on anyway. If I do die, at least I'll know I tried to defend the Earth. What I mean, is that I plan to fight alongside you," Melody declared.

"That's great! Thank you. How long have you been watching us, anyway?" Jenny asked.

Melody grinned and replied "Long enough to see your first kiss. I was wondering how long it was gonna take you to give in to his persistence. But seriously, both you and Brad have managed to make robots like us feel like we're more than just appliances or weapons. Thank you very much."

"Speaking of which. I need to tell you something very important Jenny. If you ever find it in your heart to say that you truly love me, I want you to search your heart thoroughly first. The word love is too often wasted or misused. Love is difficult define properly. Everyone has their own interpretation of the word. I thought about it long and hard before I told you that I love you so that I would know for sure that I was telling…the honest truth. Don't just do it for my sake, but also for yours. I don't want you to end up feeling like you wasted saying something so important. Once a person realizes the gravity of making such a mistake, it will haunt them for the rest of their lives," Sheldon explained.

A moment later, Jenny said "I understand. I never thought about it so deeply before. I will take your advice seriously."

"You hit me pretty hard with that one, Sheldon. I would hate it if my relationship with Brad was destroyed because we realized at some point that what we called love, was only an infatuation. You've given me a lot to think about," Melody explained.

"I'm sorry I changed the atmosphere so much. We have plenty of time to think about all of this. There's no need to rush," Sheldon said.

"It's okay. I'm glad you told me that. On another note, now that you've decided to help, I think it would be a good idea to let the other's know. I know you might be uncomfortable about that, Melody, but it wouldn't be beneficial for this to be a complete surprise right in the middle of a major battle," Jenny explained.

"It's all right. I'm in as desperate a situation as you guys are in. It wouldn't help me to remain cooped up inside my home all by myself. I would be a sitting duck. Wherever this new building is, I'll go there with you. Our differences aren't going to help me in this situation," Melody said.

"All right then. We'll head over there in a minute. Before we go, there are some things that have taken place recently that are going to take you both by surprise. Just so you know, I'm not really all that comfortable with these turns of events much either," Jenny explained.


	25. Chapter 25

When they all returned to the building, both Sheldon and Melody were both shocked and outraged to find that Vexus had been protection by the world governments.

"What the hell do you mean she's been given protection? Are you people completely out of your minds?" Melody asked.

"I see why you said you didn't feel comfortable about it, Jenny," Sheldon said.

"Let me assure you that the only reason this decision was made was out of necessity. We did not enter into this decision lightly," Mr. Hodges explained.

"Have you people somehow forgotten all the things she's done?" Melody asked.

"No we haven't. We are also well aware of how this will likely affect our reputation. Instead of trying to explain this to you; it would be a lot easier if you watch the recording of her evaluation. I even have a hard time believing she's changed this much," Mr. Hodges replied.

"Changed? In what way?" Sheldon asked.

"You'll have to see it to believe it. I don't have the time to stick around and wait for you to watch, but I do want to say that I thank you for volunteering to fight in this war. That's very noble of you. Actually, believe it or not…we were trying to find a way to contact you, but you have no official citizenship or connection to the outside world. The fact that you showed up at such a crucial time and volunteered like this has gotten a lot of people's hopes up. If you want, maybe Ms. Wakeman could upgrade you as well, if she is up to it," Mr. Hodges replied.

"I am really tied up at the moment, but when an opportunity arises within the near future, I'll do it if you want me to, Melody," Ms. Wakeman said.

"Speaking of necessity; that's the only reason I'd even consider letting someone poke their noses in a lot of my dad's secrets. I want to live, so I'll do it" Melody said.

X had been staring at Melody for a few minutes straight without anyone noticing it. A few seconds later, she finally did notice.

"How long have you been staring at me?" Melody asked while staring back at him.

X finally snapped back into reality and replied "I know this will sound crazy, but…you seem…familiar to me, somehow."

"What? That's impossible. Unless you've seen video footage of me, you couldn't know me because we never met until now," Melody said.

"I've never seen you in a picture or in video, but…oh, never mind. It must my imagination, or de ja vu or something," X said.

"Ooookay…de ja vu. You must've seen a whole lot of faces in your lifetime…since you are like one or two hundred years old. I think I got that right," Melody said.

"About two hundred: yes. I have seen so many people in my lifetime that a lot of their faces are like blurs to me. I probably just saw someone who looks kind of like you before. Sorry about the misunderstanding," X apologized.

"It's okay," Melody accepted.

"I guess I'm done here for the time being. I will return soon to check up on you all," Mr. Hodges said.

"We'll be waiting," Ms. Wakeman said.

* * *

The following morning, Grace awoke to the feeling of a solid object pushing against her shoulder. She was a little startled at first until she realized that it was only XJ6.

"I just hope those couches are comfortable to sleep on. Anyway, I brought you some breakfast," XJ6 said as she handed Grace an assortment plate.

"A sausage biscuit, an orange, and a carton of milk. I tire…of pre packaged institutional…food. Thank you for…bringing me breakfast anyway…though," Grace said as she lay the plate down on the coffee table in front of her.

"Can I sit with you?" XJ6 asked.

This was the first time since she was living in the psychiatric hospital that anyone had asked to sit with her.

She looked up at XJ6's face and answered "Sure."

XJ6 sat down beside her, and then said "I'm sorry we don't have home cooked meals here. The good news is that I have practiced cooking before a few times, and I'm getting the hang of it. If you want, I can cook something for you later."

"I would…like that. But why…are you being so…nice to me?" Grace asked.

"Umm…well…I have this weird feeling that you're someone I can get along with. Not only that, but I also want to practice human interaction with someone else besides my mom. Brad, his brother, Tuck, and Sheldon aren't around enough for me to have that opportunity. Plus, you look like you could use someone to talk to," XJ6 answered.

A moment later, Grace said "Thank you."

Grace began trying to open her milk carton. XJ6 noticed that she was having trouble with it because of her unstable nerves. She could see how frustrating it was or her.

XJ6 grabbed the carton and said "I'll open it for you."

Within only a few seconds, the carton was opened and sitting on the table.

Grace stared at her trembling hand and whispered "So I get…this strength from nowhere, but the bad nerves…remain. What a load of shit?"

"Are you okay?" XJ6 asked concerned.

"Not really, but I'll be fine. I'm used to dealing with this after all," Grace replied.

Grace began eating her breakfast. XJ6 thought about the events of her life for a minute.

She laughed, and then said "I find it so strange that it's even possible to be calm and enjoy myself knowing that I might not live much longer. How do you even make sense out of that?"

Grace finished the last of her biscuit, looked at XJ6 and replied "There are a lot…of things I don't understand. To answer…your question though: my best guess would be…to say that…if we didn't…we'd probably go insane."

"_She probably knows that better than most_," XJ6 thought to herself.

"You are pretty wise. That's one thing I do envy about humans. By the time they become teenagers, they've attained wisdom robots like me usually don't through experience. I haven't lived the average life of a human, so my experience is limited. I have become wiser within these past few years, but there are things I'll probably never understand because of what I am. On the flip side, you'll probably never see the world as I do either. There is no one who was meant to know everything, I guess," XJ6 said.

"There's another…reason I snapped at you last…night. I've had this deep fear of robots…for as long as I can remember, and I'm not even sure why or…how that fear came…about. I'm learning that…not all of you are evil, or whatever it is, I…used to…think," Grace explained.

"So, you were trying to protect yourself. I'm not taking it personally. I forgive you," XJ6 said.

Grace looked at her hand again and said "He said he thought it was cool."

"He, who?" XJ6 asked.

"His name is Jason: a guy in my school," Grace answered.

"Oh, that guy. I have yet to lay eyes on him. He's an asshole if you ask me," XJ6 commented.

"Not really. He has…a disappointed view…of the world around…him…and most of the people in it. He cares…about people…but he's angry because life…isn't pretty. He seems…to want the world to change for the better more…than anyone else I know, but he also seems to…be angry at himself…because he isn't…able to change it, so he points out people's flaws…constantly hoping they'll change, and he relies…on the feeling sarcasm…gives him as a crutch. He does have issues with…taking it too far sometimes because of…his struggle with controlling his anger…and his tongue. I often see him kick…himself over it when no one else seems to," Grace explained.

"How can you be the only one to notice something like that?" XJ6 asked surprised.

"I'm…probably not the…only one. I just seem to be. I have been…told by more than one…person that…I tend to notice subtle things…that most people never catch," Grace replied.

"Okay, but what about his undercover insults?" XJ6 asked.

"He hasn't…done much…of that since the attack," Grace answered.

"Jenny really hasn't mentioned him in a while. I guess I assumed he was still the same. You were forced to spend time alone with him in that tunnel, come to think of it. Maybe he developed a crush on you while you guys were down there," XJ6 said.

"What the…?" Grace asked.

XJ6 grinned and explained "You're the one who said it. He thought your transformation was cool. Was he grinning while saying it by any chance?"

"Come to think of it, he was," Grace answered.

"It seems to me that he might like you in that way. I could be wrong," XJ6 said.

"I don't know about that. I don't know what…he thinks about individuals that he…doesn't take the time to comment on. It's easy to see his…general view of everybody as a whole, but I have no idea what he…thinks about me. It seems more like he likes…the fact that 'life has suddenly become more interesting' as he would…normally say when something unusual happens," Grace explained.

Sheldon's voice was heard from the doorway saying "I heard a little bit of your conversation as I was heading in this direction. Trust me when I say this. I have spent most of my life obsessing with things, and with Jenny, and I'm no longer ashamed to admit it. I know when someone has a crush, and believe me, that Jason definitely has a huge crush on you."

Grace blushed a little and said "He's like an…expert or something when…it comes to hiding his intentions. I'm really good at seeing…what people are thinking, and I never once noticed him look at…me that way. How can you be so sure?"

Sheldon laughed a little, and then said "I told you. I know when someone has an obsession. What you don't see is how often he glances at you when you aren't looking at him. He does that to other people too, but not with the grin he has when he looks at you. I thought it was the fact that he thought you are just interesting at first too, but then I realized that he's been getting careless. He's taken way too many unnecessary risks of getting himself caught, which he is always careful of, as if it is some kind of rule of his. The tricky part is that I somehow don't think he realizes it himself. He hasn't paid that close attention to a girl in his life: his words; not mine. He might be having a hard time recognizing his feelings toward you, for what they are, based on the way he's been acting lately. Regardless of whether he's confused about it or not, I can tell, he's just as obsessed with you as I am with Jenny. He just has more self-control than I do."

Grace was blushing furiously by that time.

XJ6 grinned even wider, and then said "Uh, oh. I think you just made her blush Sheldon."

Grace covered her face with her hands and groaned a little.

"I can understand your issue with this. You haven't had many guys, if any at all, admit they like you in an obvious way. Am I right?" Sheldon asked.

With her hands still covering her face, Grace replied "Most people are afraid to be associated with me."

"Hey; you know, if he is the type to not be afraid say what he feels about people, maybe if he becomes aware of his feelings for you, he'd tell it to everyone, loud and proud," XJ6 said as she started laughing.

Grace blushed even harder and groaned again.

"He hasn't defended someone in that way before, and he's never had a girlfriend either. This will be a new set of circumstances for him to deal with. We'll see when that time comes. I say that because I can't imagine that it would take him much longer to realize it. By the way, that day you screamed and fainted in the cafeteria: he seemed so much more out of character than I've ever seen him. He looked as though he couldn't stand the site of you in that condition. I've seen him react harshly to all those dead bodies lying around after the attack, but not like the way he did when you were on the floor. He looked like he was overwhelmed with trying to decide how to feel about the situation. Then it happened, he said 'oh, fuck,' and then walked out of the cafeteria really fast with an intense expression on his face. When I thought about it for a second, he said it as if he was really hurt by seeing you like that. I doubt he even remembers saying it out loud like that. It was likely pure impulse. I ran into him later on that day in the supermarket. He didn't notice me looking at him at first, but he still looked very distraught, and he also looked like he was disappointed in himself. I asked him if he was okay, he looked at me for a second, and then said 'I really don't know." He walked passed me really fast and went to the restroom. I left him alone after that because I didn't know what to do. The next day, you stayed home from school. That worried him really bad. He didn't say anything about it, so most people wondered what was bothering him so badly. I knew what it was though. When you returned the day after, he seemed overjoyed and quickly regained his composure before anyone else noticed him. I didn't make it obvious that I was watching him. I don't think he experiences these kinds of emotions very often, and judging by the way he was acting that day, I don't think he's ever experienced them on that level. He's had a lot to consider lately," Sheldon explained.

By this time, Grace was breathing very heavily and her heart was pounding in her chest as she stared at Sheldon with a look of revelation.

"Oh, my God!" XJ6 whispered.

Grace took a deep breath, and then said "I see it now. It's as clear as the day. I didn't…know…he saw me that way. I see it now."

A moment later, Grace started panicking and asked "I don't…what am I supposed to do? I don't even know how I feel about him. No guy has ever paid that much attention to me before. I don't…know what to do."

"Now that you know that he feels that way about you, the best thing I can tell you to do, is do a thorough search of your heart to find the answer. If that doesn't work at first, you can try confronting him about it if you want to, and then search your heart again and again until you figure out what to feel and what to do next," Sheldon explained.

A moment later, Grace finally said "Okay. Thank you. I think I know…what to do know. When I see him again, I'll handle it."

* * *

Later on that day, Grace asked XJ6, XJ4, and X to help her as she practices using her new abilities. They agreed mainly because she had almost no experience, and they didn't want her to hurt herself, or anyone else. Melody then asked if she could join them, followed by XJ3 and Jenny. Jenny mainly wanted to spar with X and Melody to see if she could learn some new fighting techniques. They all found a large open room in the basement that could be used as a bomb shelter. They didn't really want to mention how utterly convenient that was.

"Okay then. We should first see if you can use that arm trick you used before at will," Jenny said.

"Just be careful, okay," X said.

Everyone else formed a circle around Grace and kept some distance from her. She took a deep breath and concentrated on her right arm. She focused on trying to recreate the feeling she had when she fought with Axel. Focusing intensely for about twenty seconds, a strange crackling sound was heard coming from her arm rapidly as it slowly expanded. Everyone whom had never seen it before could hardly believe what they were seeing, even though they knew Jenny wouldn't lie about such a thing. When the expanding finally stopped, her arm looked roughly the same as it did the first time.

"That's it, huh?" Melody asked wide-eyed.

"That's it, all right," Jenny confirmed.

Ms. Wakeman was also watching this on her monitor through Jenny's eyes.

"This is…very difficult…to get used to. Can someone…bring me something to break?" Grace said straining out her words.

"I'll get it," X volunteered.

He walked over to a pile of cinder blocks and brought eight of them back. He then stacked them on top of each other. Grace took two careful steps forward so as not to lose focus.

"Get as far back as you can. None of us knows…what's going to happen," Grace said.

They did as they were told. She slowly raised her arm above the stack, paused for a second, and then lightly smacked the top of it with her fist. All but the two blocks at the bottom of the stack shattered. The broken pieces of the block at the top was sent flying in many different directions.

As Grace stared at her right hand, Melody yelled "She barely even put any effort into that. I can only imagine what would happen if she hit it with all her might."

"Okay, can she do that transformation with her entire body?" XJ4 asked.

Everyone looked at XJ4 with a surprised look.

"What did I say?" XJ4 asked.

"That's probably not a good idea. What if she isn't able to become normal again? Worse: what if she loses her mind trying something that rash?" XJ6 asked.

"I was thinking…pretty much the same…thing. What if I became a…monster?" Grace asked nervously.

"I have a suggestion. What if, you focused on just increasing your muscle mass, instead of a full transformation?" Jenny suggested.

"Would that work? X asked.

Grace stopped focusing on her arm and let it revert to normal. She then focused only on her muscle mass. She let out a few groans here and there as the increase expanded the size of her body. She stopped focusing when her muscles reach three times their normal size. The effort caused her to breath heavily. She never before felt such a surge of power before. In a way, she felt as though she could do anything, but she knew that was a lie.

"That's amazing. It's just a little intimidating that she has all those veins bulging out everywhere, including her face. No offence. I just didn't expect this," Melody said.

Grace bent down and picked up one of the bottom two blocks and crumbled it into pieces with very little effort.

"Who's good…at anchoring their feet…should something crash…into you?" Grace asked.

"I don't have feet," XJ4 answered.

"X ought to be good at it, judging by some of the things I've seen him do," Jenny said.

"Zero is better at that than I am, but I'm pretty efficient at that too, I guess. Why do you ask?" X asked.

"I want…to see how fast I can run…without risking putting a hole in a wall," Grace answered.

"All right. Let me brace myself first," X agreed.

As soon as X was prepared, Grace turned to face him and charged straight forward at him with a lot of force. He was surprised at just how much impact he was calculating from her running speed. He put his hands out straight forward and her right shoulder impacted his hands. His body was sent sliding backwards. He managed to stop himself about two feet from the wall. He slid a total of sixteen feet.

"What the hell? I didn't think a human could generate that kind of power. I could've stopped myself from moving, but I seriously underestimated her strength. How is even possible for her to do that?" X yelled.

"Why are you staring at X that way? Melody asked.

X suddenly noticed the somewhat bloodthirsty look in Grace's eyes before she realized the why the question was asked. Her face returned to her normal expression.

"At the moment…I touched you…my body felt as if…it suddenly became aware…of how powerful it really is…or something like that. I'm not sure…but I feel this urge to start rampaging wildly. I'm not…because I would probably hurt somebody," Grace replied.

"It's probably endorphins," Melody guessed.

"Probably…likely," Grace added.

"If it weren't for mom giving us these upgrades, I'd be afraid for my life right now," XJ4 said.

"You seem to be forgetting what she did to Axel The Red. You don't know how strong he was. Don't worry about it too much though. Based on Jenny's report, the only upgrade they actually gave him was the flower petal restraining trick. The last time I fought him, I realized that he was weaker than Storm Eagle. Then again, we don't know the full extent of her strength. I'm not worrying too much mainly because she seems to have it under control. But Grace, you shouldn't exert yourself too much. You don't know how much stress your body or your mind can withstand using that ability," X warned.

"I accept your…advice, but I…think you're just worried…because of my ailments…and because you don't want…to be the one to suggest…that I help you guys fight in this war," Grace said with a slight grin.

"Dammit, Grace! You know we can't expect you to do that," Jenny yelled.

Grace allowed her body to return to its normal state, she pointed her finger at Jenny, and then she said "It's…not about expectations, and you know it. You're the ones…who are constantly looking for more help…to fight in this war. As…dire a situation as this is, you know you practically want to beg…me to help you. So, it's perfectly okay for armies…to expect full cooperation from their soldiers…when they are in tip…top condition, but because of a few ailments, it's not okay? It's okay…for a healthy person to be sent…to die in a battlefield, but it's not okay to send a…person like me? Give me a damn break. That's hypocritical as shit, and all of you know it. If a person…like me dies, and a person like Brad dies, it's the same fucking thing. The only real reason…you don't want to send me out…there is because you don't want to harm your reputations…as good and fair people. And don't even say it's only robots…that you're looking for. If Misty was still on…your side, you'd ask her to help in a heartbeat, and she's made of flesh and blood."

For once, Jenny had nothing to say in her defense.

"I appreciate that you're at…least trying to protect me, but for me to agree with…such hypocrisy, I would be basically telling myself…that not all people are created equal. In the end, if we lose, if we fail to protect the Earth, every human will be annihilated…with no favoritism shown. Reality dictates…that if everyone is created equally, then everyone can…also die equally. Just so you know; I don't plan to fight unless I…think I have to. My body has suddenly become a…dangerous weapon out of the blue, and I don't want…to accidently kill anyone I'm trying to…protect. Until I can…control this effectively, I'm not going on an…all out assault. Your minds can remain at ease. Listen, I apologize for snapping…at you all so often. You guys are used to this…kind of life style. I'm not. To tell you the truth, I kinda feel like…I've been traumatized. Then there's the fact…that my life has been a game…of learning how to deal with people who look…at me like I'm the sore thumb. All of you have played the game too, but you seem to be…able to handle it better, and sometimes that frustrates me," Grace explained.

"That's because I fight all the time. You're constantly in an environment where people are looking at you funny. In my case, I'm usually on missions, where I can focus on a task instead of the opinions of my peers. When I do think about the discrimination, that's when it hurts. Come to think of it, I think that's why older generations came up with the saying 'An idle mind is the Devil's workshop," X explained.

"The Devil's workshop, huh? I guess you're trying to say that if you sit around and focus on the bad, you're more likely to do something bad yourself in order to deal with it. So, if you're doing something constructive, you'll be focused on the good result," Melody guessed.

"That is more or less the thought I had in mind. But of course, I can't judge because I haven't lived anyone else's life but my own," X said.

XJ6 asked "So Grace, do you feel like continuing, practicing I mean?"

Grace grinned and bulked her muscles up to only twice their normal size this time around.

"I guess that's a yes," Jenny said.

* * *

As Ms. Wakeman, Zero, Vexus, Sheldon, and XJ7 watched the training session, they all had mixed feelings about what they were seeing.

"I would've never guessed that girl could do those things," Sheldon said.

"It's a big surprise to me as well. I didn't think it was possible for a human to do that. I wish I could run some tests without risking hurting her," Ms. Wakeman said.

"I just met Grace yesterday, and now she's suddenly some kind of super human," XJ7 said.

"I'm not concerned with the shock factor. I think it's great that a human can do that," Zero said.

Many tubes were connected to Vexus's body. They were all slowly injecting nano-machines into her body to upgrade her body from the inside out.

"I personally think you people are taking this too lightly. Am I the only one who thinks this is a bad omen?" Vexus asked.

No…you're definitely not. I don't know what to make of this. This seems like one of those events that'll change all of our lives. I just don't know if it'll be good or bad," Ms. Wakeman replied.

"Whatever the outcome, we'll just have to deal with it as happens. I just hope for the best," Sheldon said.

A moment later, Vexus giggled a little.

With a grin, Zero asked "What's so funny?"

"Hey, Sheldon. I just remembered that one time," Vexus replied followed by another giggle.

"What time?" Sheldon asked confused.

A moment later, Sheldon blushed really hard, and then said "I hope you're not talking about…"

"Yep," Vexus confirmed followed by a loud laugh.

With a curious tone, Zero said "Whoa! I must've missed something."

"Oh, no. You're terrible, Vexus. Don't torture him like that," XJ7 said with a slight blush on her face.

Suddenly, Ms. Wakeman remembered the time Sheldon stole Jenny's master blueprints, and how Vexus transformed herself into QT2, and seduced Sheldon into tricking him into letting his guard down long enough for her to steal the blueprints.

She grinned and said "You and your transformations: seducing poor Sheldon like that so you could steal those plans."

"Oh, how I had forgotten all about that. You should've seen how easily he bought my act," Vexus said followed by another laugh.

"That's actually kinda funny when I try to imagine that," Zero commented.

"You really got me with that one. I had never felt so embarrassed before in my life," Sheldon explained.

Without warning, a loud crack was heard coming from Vexus's direction.

The laughter stopped suddenly, and Zero asked "What was that?"

Vexus held up her left hand revealing several cracks in it. Not only that, but her hand was about fifty percent larger than before.

"I explained it to her already. Those tubes inject her with nano-machines that replace her old out of date parts with brand new improved parts. She insisted that she keep her old appearance, which I originally thought would be a hassle to figure out how to improve her thin body, but then I remembered that her technology was pretty far behind Jenny's with the exception of her teleportation ability and her orb. The reason for the swelling and cracking is because she's being completely rebuilt from scratch from the inside out, except for her brain and her teleportation device and orb because they're too complicated. In other words; it's like she's shedding her skin," Ms. Wakeman explained.

"Just like…a beetle," Vexus added.

"That is pretty amazing actually," Zero complimented.

"Thank you. I actually just invented this method, by the way. I plan to use it on my daughters soon," Ms. Wakeman added.

All within about a couple of seconds time, she noticed the way Vexus glanced at Zero. Vexus only did it for a second, but then she remembered her doing it plenty of times. Then there was a long conversation she had with Zero the day before. Without changing her expression, she realized that Vexus likely had a crush on Zero. She definitely thought it was funny, but she didn't show it.


	26. Chapter 26

About a week passed with no sign of a Maverick attack. A little surprising, but most realized that the first few attacks were really just a way show off their strength, and to show how serious they were.

As far as Jenny's schooling is concerned, an exception is being made because she's trying to defend the Earth. She is still being sent her lectures and homework to her e-mail address.

Then there was X and Zero's personal issues. X had been showing signs of home sickness the whole time, but only now did Zero begin showing signs himself. He didn't talk about it, but it wasn't difficult to tell that that was the issue.

One night, Vexus was walking around the building really only because she had nothing else to do, but also because she was still getting used to her stronger, more lightweight body. She stopped by every room in the building for the purpose of sightseeing. She eventually found a small lounge: much smaller than the recreation room. She saw Zero sitting in a chair resting his head in his left hand. She slowly crept around to see his face and confirmed that he was indeed asleep.

She was a little surprised and concerned when she saw his expression. She could tell he was having a nightmare.

She walked several feet away from him, turned to face him, and then called out to him saying "Zero! Zero! Wake up!"

He suddenly stood up really fast knocking the chair he was sting in down to the floor, pulled out his saber, and got into a battle ready stance. Vexus stood to his right so she wouldn't be the first thing he saw. She didn't want to risk being attacked.

He finally looked to his right, and asked "Wha…what are you doing in here?"

"I found you here sleeping during my personal tour of this building. You were having a nightmare, and…I'm standing over here just in case you impulsively attacked," Vexus answered.

Zero calmed down, sighed, and put away his saber.

"And I almost did. Sorry about that," Zero said.

As he picked up the chair, Vexus said "Don't worry about it. I'm just fine. I'm more concerned about what was bothering you so much."

Zero finally sat down in the chair again, and then said "I really don't like to talk about it."

She walked closer to him and asked "Do you mind if I sit with you?"

He shook his head indicating that he didn't mind. She pulled another chair over and sat in front of him.

"No one's bothered to ask until now, but you haven't seemed as calm and confident as you normally are, these past few days. Are you feeling a little…homesick?" Vexus asked.

Zero sighed and answered "Yeah."

"I thought so. I don't want to push you into telling me anything too personal, but I wonder what could make such a strong person like you so, how do they call it…jumpy. Whatever you were dreaming about seems to be keeping you on edge," Vexus said.

He could see the genuine concern in her eyes. Every time he looked into her eyes, he ended up getting this odd feeling that he couldn't explain.

"Umm…you see…there's actually. I never talk about this with anyone but X. I don't know if I should…," Zero said nervously.

"If you want; I'm an expert at keeping these kinds of secrets," Vexus assured.

Zero felt a surge of anger flow through his body as he stood up and walked across the room ready to leave the room.

"I can't. I'm sorry," Zero said as he opened the door.

He was heading out the door when he saw that Vexus was looking straight down with a sad expression. This caused him to pause suddenly. He re-entered the room and closed the door behind himself.

"Why are you so concerned about me anyway?" Zero asked.

Without looking up at him, Vexus answered "Because even though you seem to have everything under control in your heart, I have this terrible feeling that you are actually far more heart broken than most people, even more than X."

Surprised, Zero asked "But how? I mean…no one has ever told me that, not even X."

"I see it when you are alone. I only saw it for moment a couple of times, but I can tell, you have very deep scars on your heart. I believe X sees it too, but he doesn't mention it because he believes he should keep out of your personal life. You may not like what I'm going to say, but if you keep it bottled in for too long, that bottle will eventually explode. I know from experience," Vexus replied.

Zero sat back down in the chair and said "And here I thought I was good at keeping secrets by acting tough and trying to keep a clear mind. It really isn't easy. I guess I must've assumed X thought I got over it. Oh well. It's like this. Remember when you asked about a significant other?"

Vexus looked up at him and answered "Yes."

"This was a long time ago. There was group of reploids that banded together that claimed to be fighting to defend reploid rights, when all they really wanted was to build a society where only reploids existed. In the end, it turned out to be another repeat of what Sigma is trying to do, only without the destruction of all humans, just the amount they felt would be necessary. It became personal when the one person I thought would see their plan for it really was, was my friend, Iris. I didn't realize she felt the same way about me that I did about her until it was too late. She fell into their beliefs because she wanted the easy way out of having to live in humanity's shadow. I ended up having to kill her in order stop her from causing too much destruction. For a moment…I didn't feel as though there was a reason to go on living. Once I found out that Sigma was the one behind the deception, I came to my senses and hunted him down. I tried so hard to forget it even happened, but it's fucking impossible. Do you have any idea what it's like to lose the one you loved?" Zero asked.

"I can't relate in that area, but I did lose my father a long time ago. He left home one day without warning, and when I saw him again a week later, he was smashed into fifty four different pieces. I discovered later that he banded together with several other robots to fight our creators who had oppressed us. I vowed revenge…and you know what happened; I got my revenge. Two years later, I was part of a revolution that won our freedom. I even found the person who killed my father, and I killed him. I was so bloodthirsty that I became power hungry and challenged our leader for his position. At first, I thought I wanted to become the leader only because I thought I had a better plan for our future society, but when I look back on it, it was also that I just wasn't satisfied with killing my enemies. I wanted someone else to kill; and I did. I became a ruthless queen that was feared by practically everyone. It was a downward spiral into madness from that point on, until recently. The story of 'the great queen of Cluster Prime' doesn't really seem that great anymore. It's a really sad waste when I stop and think about it," Vexus replied.

"Looks like you've had it pretty rough too. I'm sorry for your loss though…your father I mean," Zero said.

"The worst part is that I haven't done a single thing to honor his sacrifice. What I did with that power is not what my father would've wanted. Thank you, anyway. I'm sorry for your loss as well," Vexus said

"Thank you. There is another problem though. I also keep having nightmares about a strange old man that tells me that I was meant for some great purpose: to destroy mankind. That doesn't sound so great to me. It took me a long time to realize it, but I believe this man might have been my creator. I don't remember much about my past before I was released from my capsule. Then there's this nightmare about me slaughtering a lot of people. I feel like a different person when I see myself do that. What we believe, is that the scientist named Dr. Wily is the most likely candidate for being my creator, but there's not enough proof. Deep down, there's a terrifying monster sleeping inside of me. It awakened once, and it almost killed X. He managed to defeat it, but there's no way of knowing if it's still there. I think my creator put it inside of me. The only thing I do know for sure is that it's not dormant by choice. It's more like a coma. I just don't know what would cause it to awaken again. I should stop, the atmosphere is getting a bit too tense. You really do seem to be sincere about changing your ways, especially since you're showing so much concern," Zero pointed out.

"Actually, the story was quite fascinating, but I think I'm satisfied now. Yes, I am quite sincere. I hate my past, and I want to do something that's actually worth something real for once. Showing concern about other people's problems, I sort of figured, was a start," Vexus explained.

"Everyone deserves a second chance. I just wish people wouldn't push their luck so far sometimes. Sometimes, I think I need a break from all of this…why are you grinning like…? Let me guess. It's about that 'stress relief' you mentioned, isn't it?" Zero asked with a grin.

Vexus laughed out loud when she could no longer hold it in.

The following day, the world was given a sign that Sigma was planning to attack within the near future. Every major news station broadcasted the event.

"Un…believable! They burned his name into the Washington monument. Who the hell does he think he is?" Jenny said angrily as she stared at the screen.

The Greek letter for Sigma was burned into the monument for all to see.

"He is arrogant, that's for sure, but that's no different from when Vexus used to raise Cluster Prime's flag all over our planet. I…kind of anticipated this already. It likely means that he plans to carry out his big plan soon," Ms. Wakeman explained.

"Though I wish you wouldn't remind me of my past, I do agree that he likely plans to attack soon," Vexus added.

"I can only imagine what everyone else we know must be thinking," Jenny said.

"They're likely thinking what we're thinking," XJ5 said.

"They're hoping that we're enough to do the job. I really wish Misty was on our side right now. She would be a great help," Melody said.

Jenny folded her arms together, frowned, and then said "The problem with that is, I have no way of contacting her. Even if I did, she'd only do it for money. In this case, she probably would be paid, but like I just said, I don't know how to find her."

"She needs some sense…smacked into her," Grace commented.

"Tell me about it. I wish I knew what makes her tick. Anyway…I shouldn't stress myself out about her. We have more important things to worry about. For instance: don't be too surprised if we get a phone call soon. I'm sure Ms. President is gonna want to know how prepared we are, especially since time seems to be of the essence," Jenny said.

They did receive a call, but not the type of message they expected. The white house had just been reduced to cinders. Everyone was even more surprised to find that several other capital buildings had been destroyed in other countries at the same time. Most of those world leaders were also destroyed in those explosions. Of the leaders that escaped the explosions, two of them were badly injured: the United States president and the leader of India.

Public statements were made about these attacks, but most people didn't think time or money should be spent on fancy speeches. Most people felt as though the Mavericks should be attacked head on and eliminated quickly. There was really no one who could honestly claim that the situation hadn't already gotten out of hand. Something needed to be done, and soon.


	27. Chapter 27

Multiple reploids were spotted in Tremorton. The report was that they were dropped in from above from odd looking air ships. Jenny and the others responded to the disturbance immediately. Plenty of military personnel also accompanied them. It was also made painfully aware to Grace that since so many Mavericks were so close by, she had virtually no choice but to stand and fight. Being on their wanted list, if she tried to run, she would likely be caught by them.

When they all arrived, the Mavericks were standing right out in the middle of the street waiting for them.

"That's not good. He's here too," XJ6 said.

"Looks like they finally arrived, and yes, I'm here too," Blaze Heatnix confirmed.

"And by the way, military guys; don't bother asking us to surrender. That's not gonna happen," a huge reploid named Flame Mammoth said.

"I thought all you guys looked different from each other," a male soldier yelled.

Zero then explained "About that. There are a lot of reploids that were made to look roughly the same. They were all made to serve the same purpose as your soldiers. The one's that have only a rounded black surface for a face aren't reploids at all though. Those are mechanilloids."

"Look who it is. It's been quite some time since we last met, hasn't it, X and Zero?" another huge reploid named Duff McWhalen asked.

"It has been quite a while. Two questions. How do you keep coming back after we've defeated you, and what are you planning on doing here today?" X asked.

"That question again? If you want to know how we keep coming back…you're gonna have to go ask Sigma that yourself. But onto the business of the day. I'm sure by now, you all are pretty pissed about that attack on the Presidents life. You don't have to answer. I can see the anger in your faces. Fear mongering is an excellent tactic for making mass numbers of passive humans panic. The best part is, that even if we tell them that that was the purpose, they would still panic because of our power. I know you wanted to make your country seem like a better place to live by not forcing your people to serve in the military, but look at the consequences. You have a bunch of pathetic people whos only way to defend themselves is to cry out for help from a few people who aren't even human. I can hardly call that curious case that looks like she was manifested from an old fairy tale illustration over there a human, and you military people are basically nothing but target practice. The business of the day is as follows: while you are using what limited amount of resources you have to fight us, more of our partners will be destroying things in other parts of the world," B. Heatnix explained.

"That's not fair!" XJ7 yelled.

"We gathered a large enough force into this one spot to lure you all in and to make it virtually impossible for you to split up. It's really too bad you don't have a way of detecting the movements and whereabouts of all of us. Not only that; your odds aren't looking very good at the moment. You're up against about eighty soldier reploids, about two hundred soldier mechanilloids, twenty four battle reploids, and…and old friend of Jenny's," a roughly human sized beetle reploid named Dr. Izzy Glow explained.

Suddenly, The Lancer flew into view from behind a building. His appearance was a bit shocking.

"Wow! He's been upgraded quite a bit," Jenny said surprised.

"Don't look at me in that manner. I'm not a sell-out. I hath never been one of you to begin with. It just so happens that I lived here all my life. It's time for my revenge. I challenge you to our final duel, XJ9," The Lancer yelled.

"Fine. I accept your challenge, Lancer," Jenny yelled.

"Before we get started; I have one more question. Even with your boss's ability to reproduce you from the scrap yard, how is it that he was able to build so many of you in such a short time?" X asked.

"Interesting question. When you stormed our base in Sector 4, you have no idea how many of us were already there at the time. He didn't build us all at once in a matter of weeks. He's been doing this for a long time now. The truth is, that quite a large number of us were sent through those portals, including a lot of our equipment. Surprised? Thought you had us figured out? Thought our resources were too limited to pull it off? Fate has been smiling down upon us for quite some time now. There's your answer. You decide what to do with it," Blaze Heatnix answered.

Both sides stared each other down in silence wondering who was going to make the first move. Both X and Zero took deep breaths and started absorbing energy into their bodies. The Lancer flooded his lance with electricity. Blaze Heatnix surrounded his body in an aura of visible heat. All of the available XJs raised their energy outputs to one hundred percent, and so did the reploids.

Jenny suddenly rolled to her left, and yelled "Now!"

When she rolled, it was revealed that XJ2 was behind her the whole time. XJ2 fired a powerful laser blast directly into the center of the Mavericks ranks. The Maverick in the middle happened to be Gravity Beetle.

The center ranks broke up as soon as they saw the laser and then started flying towards the other side. G. Beetle didn't expect such an attack, which caused him to barley dodge the attack leaving him with a badly damaged left arm. He stared at XJ2 and growled wanting revenge.

The battle sprung into full action. Bullets and lasers went flying through the air. People charged after each other. It seemed as though there were going to be heavy casualties on each side.

Zero released his energy into his saber. Electricity surrounded the energy blade. He ran through the ranks of weaker soldiers and started slashing them apart wildly.

X fired a powerful buster shot at an oncoming laser attack from Izzy Glow. He was surprised to find that Izzy's laser broke right through his blast. He dodged it as fast as he could.

"Time to get serious," X yelled.

He jumped into the air and a bright energy ball surrounded his body. A few seconds later, he emerged from the ball revealing his new appearance. His armor was radically different from before. Its color scheme was black and gold. He now had large claws coming protruding from the end of his buster with electricity charging into the claws.

"So that's the X-Hyper Armor I heard about. Impressive; but it won't help you," Izzy yelled as he fired yet another laser.

"_We'll see about that_," X thought to himself as he prepared to attack.

Jenny was surprised at how accurate a shot The Lancer had become. His attacks were also a lot more powerful and rapid than before as well. She spent most of her time dodging.

"Hold still, wench!" The Lancer yelled angrily.

"Just keep calling me that while you still can, you bastard!" Jenny yelled angrily as she transformed her body into the same huge saw blade he used against Phoenix. The Lancer's blasts were being cut in half as she headed straight for him. He dodged surprisingly easily.

Heatnix was surprised at just how strong XJ8 was. He could also tell that she was terrified of her based on how frantically she was trying to take him down.

Melody was holding her own pretty well with the help of her upgrades. She also found herself playing the protective roll again with some of the weaker XJs.

Vexus was the first to actually destroy one of the battle reploids. She quickly discovered that a reploid named Grizzly Slash's weakness was that he was simply too slow because of his size. She waited until he attacked and jumped over it and onto his shoulders. She put a whole lot of effort into pulling his head off with her bare hands. He didn't expect such a wild attack.

Grace and Sheldon fought next to each other, figuring that if they kept each other alive, they'd have a better chance at success.

After dodging a few attacks, Sheldon said "Try hitting me now."

Suddenly, he appeared to have duplicated his body several times. Each body ran in different directions from each other and disappeared. Sheldon was nowhere to be found. This surprised everyone who witnessed this. Wasting no time, with the help of his battle armor's strength enhancements, he began attacking the weaker enemies. The enemies directly involved became confused and very nervous. Several of them fired suddenly as they saw Sheldon reappear. What they didn't count on was that Sheldon placed the holograms directly in front of their teammates. As soon as they fired, the holograms disappeared followed by an echoing laugh that sounded as if it was coming from many different directions. The Mavericks watched helplessly as they realized that they had either killed or seriously injured their allies.

Grace smirked as she couldn't help but admire how much Sheldon improved his technological skill. She joined in on the fight as she began attacking the Mavericks herself. This was Sheldon's first real combat experience, so this was very intense for him. Even though Grace experienced war once before, this was still very intense for her as well.

Jenny was relieved that Sheldon seemed as though he would be safe for the time being.

After exchanging a few attacks, the Lancer yelled "Pay attention! Worrying about thy boyfriend will get thee killed. I am generous. As soon as I'm done with thee, I will put him out of his misery next so he won't have to mourn."

"Big talk coming from a weakling like you," Jenny retorted.

"What?" The Lancer asked insulted.

"I've quickly discovered that your so-called upgrades just aren't nearly enough. You may have had an advantage if you were fighting the old me, but not now. There's just too much at stake for me to restrain myself. It's unfortunate that you got yourself mixed up in a group of people that have driven me to the point where I have to fight to kill and not just to win. You can run now if you want, but if you continue to attack, the next move you make will be your last," Jenny threatened.

"Ha! Thou art too soft-hearted to back up those words, and I hath more than enough power to destroy you," The Lancer yelled confidently.

The Lancer charged his weapon again and began aiming at Jenny again. The colored portion of Jenny's eyes became only black outlines as she charged him running at full speed. Surprised, he fired at her without thinking it through very well. She ducked and slid under the blast.

She stopped and looked up at the head of his armor, and then asked in an angry regretful tone "Why couldn't you just listen?"

As soon as the question ended, she fired long lasers from her eyes. She then immediately jumped to her feet and headed towards other enemies. The little man inside the armor had been completely disintegrated along with the armor's head. Both arms fell limp as the armor continued floating in midair. The armor's power was not being drawn from the head.

* * *

Ms. Wakeman monitored the battle from her computer. She felt a sudden ache in her heart that reminded her of the first time she was forced to kill someone.

"I don't think I'll ever get used to this. I hate murder; even for a cause," She said.

Jenny's thoughts appeared on the screen as text saying "I don't think I ever will either."

* * *

With a huge burst of electricity, an explosion followed. Izzy wasn't particularly weak against electricity, but X actually punched through his chest plate and released the charge inside of Izzy's body. The force of the release exploded like a bomb destroying most of Izzy's body.

"We must've missed a lot since we've been out of the picture. Since when do you fight so ruthlessly, X?" Flame Mammoth asked.

"Ever since Mavericks like you made it clear you wanted to destroy the entire human race," X yelled angrily as he began charging for another attack.

XJ2 was having a difficult time fighting Gravity Beetle. She was not an experienced warrior. Though her armor was tough, she was sustaining damage. She had hoped her first attack would've defeated G. Beetle, but that obviously didn't happen as planned. Beetle knew she wasn't a warrior, so he hadn't bothered to use his gravity attacks yet. The entire time, he'd been seeing how long she could survive his electricity spheres. She figured her only hope was to try and outsmart him.

"I shouldn't be having this much trouble defeating this large woman," Heatnix yelled frustrated.

XJ8 charged him again, and then Heatnix yelled "Enough warm up!"

He flew high into the air and began raising his power to maximum. XJ8 was surprised at how fast he was at flying.

"I'll finish this now!" Heatnix yelled as he surrounded his body in a ball of flame and flew straight downward after XJ8 like a meteor.

At the same time, Grace had been hit by a powerful explosion caused by a proximity mine placed by a Maverick that she had chased into a building. Everyone heard a loud scream that made the battle come to an almost complete hault. Even Heatnix stopped in midflight.

"Oh no! That was Grace," Sheldon yelled as the building collapsed on top of her.

"Looks like that's the end of her road. You should've known not to send a handicap into battle…even if she was a strong one," a male reploid named Dark Dizzy said.

Suddenly, everyone felt a strong surge of energy pulse through their bodies.

"Felt like…a vibration," Zero yelled.

Somehow, everyone knew…that Grace was still alive. The ground began rumbling in the area where the collapsed building was. A few seconds later, rubble was thrown in all directions besides straight up away from the building. What everyone saw…was not what they expected. They saw what looked like hundreds of long blood red spikes protruding everywhere from the center point of something they couldn't recognize.

"What the…?" Jenny asked in a shocked whisper.

The spikes then slowly retreated into the center. The core took form and revealed a completely unclothed Grace. Her muscle size had returned to normal, and her hair hung in front of her face as she slumped forward as if she were tired.

"What in God's name is going on?" a soldier yelled.

Grace took a few quick deep breaths, bent backwards some, and let out an impossibly loud yell for a human. People were becoming very nervous at this point, especially since she took no visible damage. She then slowly pulled all of her hair over her back with both of her hands as she started laughing. Her skin color then began to quickly change into the blood red color from before, but only in uneven patches all over her body. A strange constant crackling sound was heard coming from her body as her skin's color kept rapidly changing from red to normal in patches all over her body.

In a loud deep strange sounding version of her voice, Grace yelled in a confident tone "You should have killed us when you had the chance. You were so close."

She continued laughing as before when the reploid that tried to kill her before ran over to her yelling "How do you expect to beat me if you keep your eyes closed?"

He tried to stab her with a long pole he found on the ground. A long spike instantly protruded from her left shoulder and impaled the top of his head.

"Holy shit!" Melody yelled surprised.

The spike retracted pulling the dead reploid towards her. She grabbed his neck and held him up in the air.

She then threw him to the side and said "Worthless!"

She then turned around and looked straight up into the air and finally opened her eyes.

Staring at Heatnix, she yelled "You'll do nicely."

Her skin color suddenly returned to normal as she jumped up into the air as fast as a bullet.

Surprised, Heatnix yelled "Crazy fool. I'll kill you!"

He charged after her to meet her head on. At the last second, she stretched out her left arm and punched through his abdomen and pulled out a large device of some kind.

Surprised, he stopped his attack.

Holding onto his left ankle with her right hand, she then yelled with a sadistic looking grin "I believe this your heat generator. Now you're mine."

He screamed and tried attacking her, but it was already too late for him. She began wrapping her body around him like really long snake. She began laughing maniacally as her body began absorbing his. No one else could really tell what was going on. Her eyes glowed bright yellow as they both fell towards the ground.

As soon as they crashed into the ground, Heatnix screamed out for help.

"I could really use some protection," Grace yelled.

The remaining Mavericks began trying to help Heatnix as Jenny and the others began shielding Grace. They weren't really sure what was going on, but they did know that Heatnix's screams sounded horrible and gut wrenching.

A minute later, someone yelled "I figured it out. She's absorbing him."

The battle stopped again and everyone looked to see that Heatnix was barely recognizable. He was definitely dead because there was no longer any sign of struggling. A few moments later, Grace stood up and began reshaping her body back to normal.

"What the hell is she?" someone else asked.

"I weigh about seven hundred pounds right now. Crazy, aint' it?" Grace yelled followed by another maniacal laugh.

When her body returned to its normal shape, her skin then became fully red, and then she replied "What am I, you ask? That's a very good frickin question. Even Grace doesn't really know what I am. That's right. I've been living inside her for a long time now. That's why I said 'us' earlier. It's strange how I came to be. You see, a long time ago, she was attacked by a madman who broke nearly every bone in her body and then tried to stab her to death. He was then found and gunned down. She was only five years old at the time. Her grandfather, the inventor of this world's first real nano-machine technology, used his invention to restore her health. At that time, I was just a simple machine. He attempted to get me out of her body, but a fault in the programming made it impossible without killing her. He then realized that if I stayed in too long, she may die anyway. These surgical scars you see on different spots of this body was his attempt to insert new nano machines with a programming that would turn off the old ones permanently. It worked. Within a matter of days, I developed a consciousness after being connected to her brain. I decided to make it seem as though I was still offline, and my deception worked. By the time she was six and a half, her mind had changed forever from the trauma of our symbiotic relationship. She then lost all memory of the attack and her grandfather, even though she was living with him. She wondered off somewhere one day and her grandfather couldn't find her. She only correctly remembers that she was almost killed and that she was nursed back to health by whomever was taking care of her. The earliest clear memory she can recall is being found living in an abandoned house and being dragged away to live in a psychiatric hospital. She only became aware of my existence within the past year. She never mentioned that part to anyone because she didn't want to seem crazier than she already does. Also, in case you're wondering why I don't appear metallic; it's because the machines used were made of flesh. When your nano-machines were made, they were made of metals because of the difference in cost."

Her voice then returned to normal, and she yelled angrily "Why the fuck didn't…you tell me before? Why have you been silent…all this time?"

Her voice then changed again saying "Honestly: for purely selfish reasons. I know you're a little more than upset. It was only within the past two years that I began to think like a human being. As an infant of sorts, I was selfishly trying to leach off of you for your experiences both mental and physical. If I were you, I would be mad too. I realize that now. It took me a long time to realize that what I was doing wasn't exactly right. I'm developing softer emotions now and I'm finding myself regretting ever putting you through all of this without ever giving you anything in return. You may never forgive me, but I apologize."

"What do you mean though? I thought Dr. Kingston invented the first nano technology. Grace is not a Kingston, she's a Harnell," Jenny argued.

"Dr. Kingston stole the idea and patented it before her grandfather did. That's why you never heard of him. Kingston was the famous one. Dr. Harnell was lost to the pages of history. Good luck actually finding those pages though. Even I don't know where they are. I never knew his first name. I only know him as Dr. Harnell. What's worse is that the fact that he tried to delete me was traumatizing enough for me at the time that I later deleted a lot of my memory of him so I wouldn't be burdened by such terrible thoughts. Little did I think at the time that maybe…just maybe…Grace might need to know these things later on in life," she explained.

Her voice changed to normal again, and then she said in an irritated tone "Well thank you for ruining my life…for the past decade. At least you had the decency…to apologize. Can you please leave…my body and take that bird…with you? You seem to be able to…take care of yourself quite…nicely."

Her voice changed again saying "That's impossible. Believe me; I want to leave your body so I can end your suffering, but I've been in you for too long now. The merger is permanent. I don't think there is such a being alive that can transform the way we did and absorb and entire being and still be able to separate the way you're talking about. It's about seven years too late for a separation without both of us dying in the process. I know you feel like crying. I'm sorry that things turned out this way. If I could change it, I would. I can't do anything to change the past, but I can try to make this worth your while. I took so much from you, and now I intend to return the favor. Ask of me, and I will give you what I can."

A few seconds later, Grace said in her normal voice "The past cannot be changed. You're right. If you're going…to live in me, I expect you to cooperate with me. I have people I wish to protect. Help me do that. What is…your name, by the way?"

Her voice changed again saying "I'll tell you, but first…"

She levitated about ten feet off of the ground and heat waves began emanating from her. Her body began expanding in size, and she began to change into something no one else has seen before. It looked as though thousands of vein like structures protruded from her body wrapping around her like a snake. She became about eight feet tall in the end of her transformation and her skin remained completely blood red.

"The bird had wings. Why not us?" Grace asked.

Slowly, odd looking wings began sprouting from her back.

When they were fully formed, Flame Mammoth yelled "We don't know how powerful she's becoming. Why are we just standing around like this? We need to kill her now."

Realizing that he was right, the Mavericks began firing at Grace. She flew straight up into the air to avoid the attacks.

"My name? I'd like to call myself…The Red Angel," Angel yelled.

Grace then said "That's a fine name. We are one in the same. We should not view…ourselves as completely separate. How do you feel about…me carrying your name as a…nickname?"

"Sounds good to me," Angel said.

Both of them yelled out loud from the same mouth saying "Together, we are The Red Angel!"

"I hope she's still on our side," X yelled.

Grace started flying downwards towards the Mavericks launching balls of fire. All but one of them managed to dodge the fire balls. As he burned to cinders, they all began firing at her. She dodged every shot pretty easily. She finally reached ground level and started wildly destroying every enemy she could find. Her allies finally joined the fight as well.

Dark Dizzy narrowly escaped Grace's rampage, and then yelled "Things are not going as planned. What are we supposed to do now?"

Suddenly, Jenny stopped in mid-battle and her entire body started trembling. She began laughing very giddily and extremely excited. This made everyone stop again.

"Oh my God! This is just too good to be true," Jenny yelled while laughing.

"Don't mind her. Continue the assault," Flame Mammoth commanded.

Jenny laughed even louder than before, and then yelled "I haven't gone crazy. I didn't think they'd actually pull it off so soon, especially not in the middle of a struggle like this. Help is on the way."

Suddenly, Jenny's body vibrated so heavily, that the street below her started to crack. Without warning, large sphere's of energy that resembled the portals from before appeared one after the other in different spots all over the area. Time seemed to slow down for a few seconds until the spheres disappeared. As they disappeared, they revealed many different reploids.

One in particular spoke out confidently saying "Time to mop the floor with these Mavericks!"

"Axl! You made it. It's good to see you again," X yelled happily.

"Aw…shit! They actually figured it out. Half the damned Maverick Hunter forces are here. We need to call off the attack and leave this place now," Dizzy yelled.

"Oh no you don't! You started this, and we're gonna make you finish it. Let's take em' down," Zero yelled.

The battle resumed. The Mavericks were outmatched. One after the other, they fell like flies. A few managed to escape.

When the action finally stopped, Jenny performed a scan of the area, and then said "The coast is definitely clear. Too bad some got away. According to the data I'm receiving from satellites, the other attacks around the world have stopped. They're running back to their master."

Axl walked over to Jenny and said "So, you're Jenny. I can tell by your voice. Thanks for taking care of our buddies."

"I feel more like they've been taking care of me. I didn't expect you to look so young," Jenny commented.

Axl grinned and said "Hey, Zero! Looks like you won that bet. People always assume I look older before they see me. I guess having a good record and rank like mine gives people that impression. You were right."

Zero could only laugh.

Axl looked around and asked surprised "Oh! What the hell is that?"

Everyone looked at Grace. The one's that didn't notice her before were also surprised. She only frowned.

"No offense lady, but talk about the elephant in the room, and I'm not making a fat joke. I really need to watch my mouth," Axl said ashamed of himself.

Grace sighed and said "Don't worry…about it. I can see…that we all have some explaining to do."

A blond female reploid made her way over to Jenny saying "She's right. We need to find a place to talk about our future plans."

"Jenny, say hello to Alia," X said.

"Hello Alia. It's nice to finally get to meet you," Jenny said.

"I'm glad to meet you too. I didn't expect you to be the same shade of blue as X," Alia commented.

A few seconds later, XJ6 said "Awkward silence."

Before anyone responded, they all heard the footsteps of someone running towards them. A younger looking blond female reploid ran over to the crowd yelling "Don't be alarmed. It's me, Palette."

Everyone calmed down.

When she finally stopped running, she complained "Why did I have to be the one to get sent about a couple miles away from here?"

"I'm glad you could make it too, Palette. Where's Layer?"

Most of the Maverick Hunters, including Alia and Palette lowered their heads and frowned.

"Dammit! I can't believe she was a Maverick this whole time. I had my suspicions, but I didn't really think it was true," X said disappointed.

"She had been caught giving us false information for about a few months. Commander Signas confronted her about it; she retaliated by attacking him with a rifle, and the commander subdued and arrested her. She's in prison right now awaiting her trial," Alia explained.

X took a deep breath and said "Okay. It won't help us to worry too much about that right now anyway. We need to get out of here. This has been one hell of day!"


	28. Chapter 28

When they all returned to the building, they all gathered in the largest room because they were all asked to speak to the President. There was a large monitor in the room where they could see the President as they talked.

"I'm relieved to see that you're not too badly hurt," Ms. Wakeman said.

"Thanks. I have a broken leg, a pulled muscle in my arm, a sore jaw, and terrible headache; but other than that, I think I'm fine. You all showing up when you did really saved the day. I'm sure you're all aware by now that practically the entire world knows about this. They've also discovered Vexus's presence in the battlefield, and they're going to want to know why. I wish this were easier to deal with. Ms. Alia; I've been told that you are one of the top navigators in your unit. I've also heard the same about you, Ms. Palette. I'm not your superior officer, but I would like to formally request your assistance in helping coordinate the battle against Sigma. Do you accept?" The President asked.

"I accept," Alia answered.

"I also accept," Palette answered.

"What about the rest of the Maverick Hunters?" The President asked.

"Fighting Mavericks is our job. Of course we accept," a female reploid answered.

All of the other Hunters nodded their heads in agreement.

"That's good. I thank you. As for you, Grace, your situation is becoming more complicated than before. Even so, at this point, I cannot expect you to fight against your will. You can decide that for yourself. Now that this Red Angel, as she calls herself, has decided to finally surface, I need to speak with her, if you can make that happen," The President requested.

"I was hoping you wouldn't…but I'm here. What do you want from me?" Angel asked.

"I need to know where your loyalties lie," The President answered.

"My loyalties lie with Grace…and whomever she aligns herself with. If she decides to help you fight these Mavericks, I will help her. If she decides not to, I will remain indifferent to your problem unless our safety is compromised. I do promise that I will not intentionally hinder your fight," Angel explained firmly.

"I see. I can tell by your tone you cannot be easily persuaded, but that would only matter if you could separate from your host. Since you're unable, we have to deal with you as we would deal with Grace. But speaking of which, where do your loyalties lie, Grace?" The President asked.

"Besides being legally…bound to the rules of my…United States citizenship, my personal loyalties do…lie with this country. I wouldn't want to be a…citizen of any other country," Grace answered.

"That's good. If you should decide to help, I wish you all the luck you can get. Now that that's taken care of, I'm hoping to be able to talk to your commander, Signas, sometime in the near future, if that's possible. If possible, even the leader of your country," The President said.

"Commander Signas already plans to make a trip here as soon as he gets the okay from our leader. As far as our leader is concerned, it's far easier said than done. Even if we could connect you to a line, there's no guarantee he will agree to talk with you. He wasn't exactly too thrilled about the idea of sending us here in the first place. The only reason he did was because we knew Sigma was more vulnerable in your world than ours. Not only that, he also fears getting that closely involved with too many different nations as it is, especially one that we didn't know existed until recently. Quite a lot of political issues suddenly raised once this whole ordeal started. If it is agreed upon, it will likely be at least a few months from now, which is my best estimate," Alia explained.

"Somehow, I figured that was the case. I look forward to speaking with your commander. In the mean time, you will soon be sent supplies and some extra help. Skyway Patrol will be getting involved soon as well. I need to tend to other matters for now. Godspeed," The President said before disconnecting.

* * *

After becoming reacquainted with each other, the Maverick Hunters decided to try to get to know Jenny and the others, especially since they would be working together. They all talked with each other for a while discussing everything from a few minor personal details to their plans for the fight.

Grace decided to stay only long enough to give her name and a couple of other details about herself. She felt too uncomfortable around so many strangers.

Sitting by herself in the recreation room again, she communicated with Angel mentally.

"_There's too many extraordinary things happening all at once. I just can't hang around that many people I don't know right now_," Grace said.

"_You probably really should meet more people. You're always isolating yourself_," Angel suggested.

"Do _you really think you have room to talk_?" Grace asked.

"_I guess you make a good point_," Angel replied.

"_You're attached to me, and you only now decided to meet me. It seems to me that you're much more of an introvert than I am_," Grace pointed out.

"_Actually, I've been more afraid to meet you than anyone else_," Angel said.

Surprised, Grace asked "_Really? Why is that_?"

"_Believe it or not, you're a very intimidating person. I have the power to kill you pretty easily; but if I did, I would die too. That is obviously not the issue then. Every time your anger explodes, it hits me like an emotional brick. Jennifer's anger is scary, but you're on a whole other level, in my opinion_," Angel replied.

"_Come to think of it; she did seem to be a little afraid of me that day in the hallway_," Grace said.

"_Oh yeah, she's definitely scared of you. Now that she knows I'm here too, she's probably going to be avoiding us more regularly_," Angel said.

"_I actually believe you too. I'd rather not think about her too much right now. On a more important note, I bet you know 'all' of my personal secrets, don't you_?" Grace asked irritated.

"_Now you see why I waited until we were in serious danger to show myself. I knew you would ask me that. Yes. I know all of them. I will keep anything secret you want me too. You have my word on that_," Angel promised.

"_I've been sort of aware of your presence for a while now, though I had no idea you were actually a part of me. I always thought you had something against me. Why are you choosing to be loyal to me?_" Grace asked.

"_We're practically the same person. Every time you feel, I feel it too. I have such a close bond with you; and not just that, but I also feel like you're my mother. Without you, I would not be who I am today. Relationship wise though, I view you as being more like my sister_," Angel replied.

"_Okay. I think I understand. Even though you put me through hell, I feel like I can trust you. I'm stuck with you anyway, so I guess the best thing to do is try to better our relationship_," Grace said.

"_By the way, I also happen to think that Jason boy is cute_," Angel said.

Blushing, Grace said "_Oh my God! I really wish you hadn't said that_."

Angel laughed a little, and then said "_You don't need to be ashamed around me. In all seriousness, I think you should go for it_."

"_I don't even know if I like him like that_," Grace said.

"_Take your time then. In the mean time, let's entertain our guests_," Angel said.

Suddenly remembering where she was, footsteps were heard coming from the doorway. Grace looked up and saw XJ6 walking beside a reploid.

She frowned slightly and said "Hello Axl."

"I hope you're not mad at me from what I said before. I'm really sorry about that," Axl apologized.

"I hope that you only…really said that because you just…saw me for the first time. I was beginning to think…you're always like that. And Hi, XJ6," Grace greeted.

"Hi Grace," XJ6 responded.

"I need to learn to control my tongue better. I often end up choosing bad words. That's what I've been told anyway. You just surprised me so much," Axl explained.

"Wait a sec. I thought you weighed 700 pounds after absorbing that flaming bird guy. How come you're not crushing the couch?" XJ6 asked confused.

"We dropped a lot of excess weight once we learned how to reproduce the same abilities on our own," Angel answered.

"That's actually quite amazing, really. You really are the first human machine combination I've ever seen that can actually learn such abilities as certain reploids can. I didn't think it was possible. Not only that, but you actually managed to beat Blaze Heatnix on your own. That's quite a feat. X almost didn't make it the first time he fought him," Axl explained.

"He was quite powerful. I should know. I did absorb him. One day…I'm practically normal human strength, and the next day…I'm able to kill Axel The…Red with ease. Now this. It doesn't even…seem conceivable. It's almost as…if I'm in a dream; but I know I'm not," Grace said.

"I rarely ask why certain things are the way they are anymore, unless I need to. I'm not sayin' that you should blindly except everything for what it is without question, it's just that I find it way too stressful to try to figure out every detail about everything. In my opinion, I think it's great that you can be the way you are without dying. I think you're quite fortunate," Axl said.

"If you knew what I've been through, you wouldn't be so quick to call it fortunate," Grace added.

"There's not a person anywhere who doesn't live through some kind of pain on a regular basis. I think that what doesn't kill ya' makes ya' stronger. Can you honestly say you'd ever be this strong without all that pain you've been through?" Axl asked.

"I agree with the whole 'no pain…no gain' philosophy, but you don't know the…kind of pain we go through," Grace replied.

"Our pain is more mental than physical. Do you know what it's like to constantly wonder what it's like to feel human physical pain, but can't? Do you know what it's like to try to protect humans from feeling pain that you can't fathom yourself. It gets to the point that sometimes I wonder why I keep trying to help save humans from that pain, as if my efforts are in vain. That kind of pain doesn't exist anyway, right? Forcing that to be logical in my mind is maddening sometimes. I've grown to accept that it's real, and that's why I keep doing what I do. If I dwell on it, I'll go crazy, that's why I chose to find ways to remain happy and confident," Axl explained.

"Not knowing why you people hurt the way you do drives me crazy too. I wish I did," XJ6 said.

A few seconds later, Grace said "I never…looked at it that way before. I always try to get robots to put themselves in our shoes, but never vice versa."

"Everyone has their own reality to deal with. I remember, long before Jenny was built, I once tried to smash my hand with a hammer to see if I would cry out in pain…but I felt nothing. It's actually quite frightening to know that I have a body, but can't feel it. I learned to kind of forget about it nowadays, but I do still think about it from time to time," XJ6 explained.

"I guess what you're really mad about is that we tend to turn a blind eye to your suffering. Some of us regrettably do. That's not the case with all of us. X is a good person. He never stops worrying about people's suffering. He tries not to show it too much, but whenever he sees someone suffer…man…I've never seen a hardcore reploid cry as hard as he does. That guy actually wishes he could end all pain. He hates it so much every time he's forced to kill a fellow reploid. We do too, it's just that no other Hunter regrets being one as much as he does," Axl explained.

"Are you okay, Grace?" XJ6 asked concerned.

Grace had a look on her face as if she was ready to laugh. Suddenly, both Angel and Grace began laughing at simultaneously.

A moment later, Angel said "My thoughts exactly, Grace. We're sorry about that. We just realized something. It's funny. We heard everything you said. Thank you both very much. I'm a machine, but unlike you, I feel everything she does, so I never knew what it was like to be like you. By the time I became aware of my existence, I was directly connected to all five of her senses. In short, I feel the way she does on the subject. You've both given us quite a lot to think about."

Her voice changed and Grace said, "Thank you for…helping me understand a little…better."

Grace stood up and started heading towards the door.

"Where are you going now, Grace?" XJ6 asked.

"I need to eat something…and take a nap. That transformation…is really taking it out…of me. I need some time…alone anyway. I'll meet up…with you later," Grace replied.

"Oh, okay. I'll see you later then," XJ6 said.

Before closing the door behind herself, Grace said "Hey Axl, can you tell X I'd…like to have a word with him…alone when that meeting…is over? I have something I'd…like to talk to him about. I'll be in room 404."

A little surprised, Axl replied "S-sure! I'll tell him then. That meeting is bound to be a long one, so you should have plenty of time to take a nap."

"Thanks," Grace said before closing the door.

Axl looked at XJ6 puzzled who was also looking at him the same way.

"Didn't you just say she usually goes out of her way to avoid reploids because we come from another world, which makes her feel uncomfortable?" Axl whispered.

"I don't even know why she'd want to speak with him. She never has before. Whatever. I bet it's just one of those curiosity settling questions," XJ6 replied.

"You're probably right," Axl agreed.

* * *

X agreed to talk with Grace. When he arrived at the room Grace was in, he knocked on the door.

A moment later, a sleepy sounding Grace asked "Who is it?"

"It's me, X. I was told you wanted to talk to me about something," X replied.

"I'll be…right there. Actually, give me about three minutes. I need to…wake myself up," Grace said.

When she finally let him in, Grace closed the door behind herself, and then said "First; is there anything else you all discussed that I need to know."

"Not really. There's a big debate on how to go about dealing with Sigma that's yet to be resolved. We plan to discuss it again tomorrow. Hmm…this room looks so undecorated, like a military platoon bedroom. I know you don't actually live here, so that's understandable," X commented.

"Your tone: it sounds as if…you're trying to suggest that I…go home as soon…as I am allowed. Let me guess; war is too much for…a young 'human' girl like me?" Grace asked with an odd looking grin.

Somewhat nervous, X asked "H-How did you guess that so easily?"

"I happen to pay very close…attention to the 'finer' details," Grace answered.

"Are you really trying to say that you want to fight in this war?" X asked concerned.

"I didn't say that at all. I'm not saying that I plan…on running and hiding…either. I haven't decided yet," Grace answered.

"I'm only concerned about your safety. Not only that, you feel pain as ordinary humans do. You were very fortunate not be in a lot of agony right now. I know you're strong; it's just that I don't want you experience that," X explained.

"What if you and the…others fail?" Grace asked.

"I won't let that happen. I can't let it happen," X replied in a harsh tone.

Her voice changed as she started laughing in Angel's voice.

A moment later, Angel said "Now I'm finally starting to see what this is all about."

"I don't understand. What do you mean, Angel?" X asked.

"You really are something strange indeed. This brings me to why we called you in here. Grace was talking to your friend, Axl earlier. What we heard about you is priceless comedy. I think it's funnier than Grace does. He said that you wish to end all pain," Angel explained.

X didn't know how to respond.

A few seconds later, Angel said "Who…or what…exactly do you think you are? Your words were 'I won't let that happen. I can't let it happen.' You said I. I heard that you care deeply about everyone, and I even got that impression by hanging around you, and I think that's good, but what was really crazy, was the most outrageous thing I've heard so far. I overheard Jenny mumbling something to herself recently about you wanting to create a worldwide utopia of peace for all people. I didn't think she interpreted your intentions correctly at first, and I didn't think much of it at first either because I thought it was a misunderstanding, but now I see you're actually serious. I'm all for peace, but you make it seem like it's your responsibility, as if the fate of the world has been put on your shoulders alone. Who…or what…exactly do you think you are?" Angel asked.

X felt a combination of anger, sadness, and the feeling of being insulted all at once.

With an angry expression on his face, X said in an angry tone "So you ask me to come all the way up here, make me wait because you weren't ready, and then insult me in my face."

"Answer the fucking question; dammit," Angel and Grace yelled simultaneously.

X then yelled "I don't know, okay!"

He then lowered his tone some and said "I don't know. What I do know…is that nobody else seems to be interested in volunteering to make real lasting peace. And I'm not talking about some stupid pointless treaty or understood conditional peace. This world and ours has seen too much hatred and suffering for so long, and nobody is really doing anything about it."

He raised his voice again and yelled "Everyone is always caught up in their dumb ass differences and personal problems to show that they genuinely give a damn about anyone but themselves. I know there are some people out there that do play the hero, but what good is a hero who also acts like the average selfish person? Saving people's lives is all good and everything, but what about trying to help make people's lives better? You know what I've learned? I've learned that these so-called heroes feel like it's just too much trouble to go that extra mile to really help people. It's as if being a hero is just another damned part time job. So you save the life of a guy who regularly abuses his family and is an asshole to everyone around him, and even if you know that about him, you keep your job description at the just saving people's lives from immediate disasters because you don't like dealing with other people's personal problems. What kind of bullshit logic is that? All you're doing is preserving life. You haven't done a damned thing to improve it. Life preserver by day and personal life tender by night. Give me a break. If that's the limit to your heroism, then you might as well quit."

X was breathing heavily at this point.

"I…hate my job sometimes. Being a Maverick Hunter is necessary, but sometimes I don't feel like any progress is being made. The same cycle continues constantly with no conceivable end in sight. People scream 'save us;' but what for? Is it that they want their lives saved, or is it that they want to preserve their constant cycle of personal gains and pursuits of fleeting high impact pleasures. I bet if they didn't have those, most people wouldn't care if their lives were snuffed out. I decided to dedicate myself so heavily to make world peace happen, but we need more people to dedicate themselves that way, or better. I'm not perfect. I fall victim to my personal desires sometimes too. Worrying about such things takes too much time out of making progress, and realizing that, makes me angry at myself for falling into the same damned category of the people I just described," X yelled.

Angel then said "I understand you better now. You make a hell of a good point. What's so damned crazy about what you just explained…is that that is exactly…what I've been thinking for most of my life. Grace feels the same way. Neither of us really wanted to be a hero by any means, but we do see the constant bullshit that you just described radiating from humanity all the time. I hate that we both also happen to be a part of it as well. How the hell did we end up like this anyway?"

X lowered his tone and then replied "You mean the fact that no one has figured out how to be a completely good person? That's exactly what I've been trying to figure out. It seems as though as soon as a person is aware of the difference between good and evil, they're locked into a constant inescapable struggle of dealing with both until they die."

Grace suddenly had a shocked expression on her face as soon as X finished his last sentence.

"You all right?" X asked.

"Actually…yes! We both just realized…something. It's not important…right now. I agree with…you though. Listen, X, I'm sorry for acting the way I…did toward you. You're a well meaning person. I wish more people…could see the world the way you…do. If everybody did, we wouldn't be worried…about trying to fight Sigma," Grace replied.

"I was a little angry at you, but I'm okay now. You know what's really terrible to realize? If it weren't for all the evil in this world, I wouldn't have been created. Dr. Light created me for this reason. None of the XJ sisters would be here. You wouldn't be here either, Angel, because that guy wouldn't have been evil to attack you in the first place," X pointed out.

Angel then asked "Makes us robots have great fucking outlooks on our existence, doesn't it?"

"So you do understand where I'm coming from? Then there's Melody. You see where I'm going with this?" X asked.

"Ah…shit. You would know too. Zero was also created for the same purpose, to spread evil. What 'does' that say about them?" Angel asked.

"I'm really just glad they decided to try to be good people despite what their creators wanted. Both orphaned into a cruel world. I'm also an orphan. Now I feel like I'm just rambling. Anyway, I feel like we should either continue this conversation elsewhere or another time. A guy spending too much time in a girl's bedroom tends to make people suspicious," X replied.

"Yes, you're right. That's why I'd…never stand alone with you…in my bedroom at home. Here, it's not quite so bad," Grace added.

"I'll see you some other time then," X said as he was leaving the room.

"See you then," Grace said.

* * *

Jenny was standing in another empty room down the hall leaning against a wall with her arms crossed tight and her head pointed down. She stared at the floor very intensely as she contemplated the argument she overheard between X, Grace, and The Red Angel.

A moment later, she looked up the ceiling with a very sad expression on her face, and then asked "Why the fuck am I here?"


	29. Chapter 29

Two weeks passed with no sign of Maverick activity. Things were a little different now. The building that Jenny and the others were staying in was now empty. All people and useful equipment were moved to a large underground military base. The enormous door to the surface was fortified to withstand a high level nuclear blast. Also, as added protection, a holographic projector was added to hide the entrance. The grounds surrounding it were covered in dense forest. The entrance appeared to have trees covering it.

Jenny managed to calm down quickly enough to avoid making the others concerned. She felt as though she couldn't afford to worry about the 'why am I here' question for the time being.

Should any of them need to make contact with the outside world on a personal level, careful arrangements were made to make it happen. Or, at least, that was the idea at first. It turned out that any of Jenny's friends and their families were discovered as subject to be prime kidnap targets for hostage situations. They all felt the fate of the world was far more important than worrying about the expense of making accommodations for a few people. So, it was settled, all people with personal attachments to Jenny, Sheldon, and Grace came to live at the base temporarily. These people were Grace's few friends from the orphanage and the two friends she made at the psychiatric hospital that she hadn't seen since she left, Sheldon's parents and one childhood friend (and his father) he hadn't seen in ten years, Brad and his family, Jenny's few friends from school, and finally, Ms. Wakeman's only surviving close relative and sister Wisteria and her son (or creation, as with the case of XJ9) Glenn.

Wisteria was especially not thrilled with the idea of living under the same roof with so many robots and other machines, but she did decide to try to put up with it.

Vexus has still managed to keep her relationship with Charlotte a secret from everyone. There was no need for her to worry about Charlotte's safety. They both agreed to stay away from each other until the situation has concluded before Vexus turned herself in.

Needless to say, but the world's population wasn't happy at all with the idea that Vexus was given protection. They were, however, surprised to know that she actually turned herself in and agreed to fight to help save the Earth. The oddest part was that very few people thought that the story was unbelievable. Most agreed that she must've gotten tired of running and hiding all of the time. The official explanation never covered the part about Vexus breaking down and crying her eyes out and apologizing for every horrible thing she's done to Earth's people. The committee that wrote the official explanation didn't believe the public would buy it.

Commander Signas did make the trip he planned on. He even brought a few other reploids that have helped out in the past before. They weren't officially Maverick Hunters, but they did help out greatly in a battle against a Hunter commander turned Maverick named Colonel Redips. Their names were a female reploid named Marino who's actual occupation was a thief. It was known that she was a thief, but no solid evidence supported her doing anything that was punishable by law. There was another female nurse reploid named Cinnamon. She also managed to become pretty strong when helping the Hunters fight. The third reploid Signas brought with him was a large male reploid named Massimo. He wore thick heavy armor and carried with him a hammer with a huge head. Many supplies were brought with them as well.

Signas had his talk with the President and the other world leaders. He insured them his cooperation and the cooperation of every other Maverick Hunter. He unfortunately couldn't stay as he needed to return home to deal with other matters. He did have time to reacquaint himself with X and Zero and to meet Jenny and the others. Finally, Jenny was able to truly say that she wasn't going crazy. Laying eyes on Signas in person gave her proof that she saw who she thought she saw in the dream.

An explanation for Grace's ability to transform the way she did was also demanded from the public. In the end, the public was made aware that the governments of the world knew nothing beyond the explanation that Angel gave. Many suspected that somebody somewhere did a lot to keep a secret.

* * *

In today's news: firearm and ammunition sales have soared recently as Maverick activity is becoming more expected.

* * *

Both Nora and her sister Wisteria were working on few things in a laboratory. Glenn and Melody also happen to be in the room with them discussing a few things when X came running into the room frantically with a small box in his hand.

As soon as he stopped, Wisteria asked "Why are you in such a rush?"

"Melody. Now I know why you seemed so familiar to me. I can't believe I forgot all about it," X said.

"Okay…this must be important if you ran half way around this base to see me," Melody said.

"All right. This might sound strange, but it's not your appearance that's familiar at all. It's your energy signature. I know it's weird, but I can sometimes detect the energy patterns emitting from certain people. You happen to one of them. Your energy signature is identical to the signature I detected from a large machine I found in one of Dr. Light's old labs. When I turned it on, it kept saying that it was searching for a match. I turned it off when I realized most of the machinery was too badly damaged to do anything with. I removed the parts that were any good and stored them away. I forgot about it until I went looking through a bunch of my supplies that were brought over here. It's here in this box," X said as he opened it.

There was a small machine inside of it that looked quite a bit like a memory storage device.

"All of the memory is stored in here. Dr. Light apparently once built a robot he named Roll. You know that armor that I used to defeat Dr. Izzy Glow with? It turns out that Dr. Light was developing an upgrade for this robot. I believe it was an armor. Roll must've been either deactivated or destroyed making this research pointless. It's inactive at the moment, but if somehow it can be reactivated, we may be able to find out if this thing can be useful," X explained.

"Wait a minute! Even if that thing works, I'm not so sure attaching something to my body won't hurt me?" Melody asked nervously.

"A legitimate concern. Every one of the other armor upgrades I have came from Dr. Light himself. Technically, I suppose you can say he's still alive, but only as a very basic artificial intelligence. I found all of my other armors inside of capsules hidden around the world. He hid them in case I needed them. Each time, he'll show up as a hologram inside the capsules and say a few things to me about the past and then tell me to board the capsule to get the upgrade. When I board them, they all always check to see if I am the real X first before they actually give me the upgrade. Basically, this machine will determine first if you're a match, and then try to determine if upgrading you is even safe before it tries to actually install itself into you. Since you've been recently upgraded with reploid technology, your chances of not being harmed have gone way up. But, of course, it will let you know if it thinks it's safe at all or not," X explained.

"If it weren't for the fact that my survival is depending on being as strong as possible, I wouldn't even consider it. I'll do it if it is safe," Melody said.

"Looks like another job for Noreen Wakeman. I'll see what I can do with it," Ms. Wakeman said.

"In its current state, you would first half to reconstruct all the missing parts based on the diagram saved into the hard drive, before attempting an actual upgrade. The last time I activated it, I managed to delete the encryption. You won't need to worry about having to break through the security," X explained.

"Hold on a second. Why me? How is that even possible? That thing is from another dimension," Melody pointed out.

"It's from an alternate dimension, not from one that is completely different from our own. I've studied the energy patterns coming through those portals and realized that their world is extremely similar to ours. The chances that this will work are still slim even with that, but if it does work, and you are compatible, this might be beneficial," Ms. Wakeman said as X handed her the box.

"It does seem like everything that Dr. Light guy makes is high quality, so who knows, this might actually be a good thing," Melody said.

After inspecting it, Ms. Wakeman said "The craftsmanship of this machine is incredible. I can tell this Dr. Light definitely knew what he was doing when he made you."

She then walked over to another large machine, and began finding ways to connect her computer to the small machine. Every time the screen read error, she would then rearrange the wires she connected to it. About two minutes later, the screen finally began showing signs that it recognizes certain aspects of the machine.

"Now that I'm understanding what track it's on, I can go from there," She said.

She then removed all of the wires that had no results, and then began reconnecting those wires to different ports. A few more failed attempts later, and finally…

"There it is! Now that my computer knows that it's a device, now I just have to decipher the programming language," Ms. Wakeman said as she started typing at abnormally fast speeds…for a human.

Wisteria sighed and said "Such is the fate of us both. I can't understand computers the way you can, but you can't understand biology the way I can. It would take me about a hundred times as long as you to type that much information."

Still typing, Nora said "It would take me probably a thousand times as long as you to put together a functioning biological life form."

The screen then read "ERROR READING PORT #43."

"I was afraid that might happen. Maybe if I connect this one instead…and that's it. That one works," Nora said.

She began typing again, and after about five minutes, the screen read "ATTEMPT TO BOOT OPERATING SYSTEM IN SEPARATE WINDOW? Y/N?"

"That was quick. Even I didn't think you could do it that fast, Aunt Nora," Glenn said.

Nora then pressed the Y key initiate the booting process.

"If it weren't for the fact that X went out of his way to simplify the accessibility as much as he did, it could've taken me hours to do this. I couldn't access most of X's and Zero's latent memory because of the 'out-of-this-world' encryption Dr. Light encoded into his hard drive. There are many sections of his data that are hidden so well that it almost seems as though he doesn't have them. I almost didn't discover their existence myself. It's the same with Zero. Whatever Drs. Light and Wily wanted hidden, they really did an amazing job at it," Nora explained.

"In file size, how much hidden data are we talking?" Melody asked.

"That's the problem. I'm not really sure. Dr. Light purposely installed a program that displays a false estimate of how much data can be stored into his hard drive to fool people. From my calculations, however, I'm estimating his hidden data to be about seven hundred terabytes in size," Nora replied.

"That's a lot of secrets," Melody said somewhat surprised.

"Forgive us for not being computer whizzes, but that's a lot, right?" Wisteria asked.

"The average size of a movie on an old fashioned DVD is about four gigabytes. Seven hundred terabytes is about a few hundred thousand times the amount of information those old DVDs can store," Nora answered.

"That's one hell of a perspective. It hard for me to wrap my mind around that many ones and zeros," Wisteria said.

"Yes, it is a whole lot of binary code, that's for sure: 165,282,829,004,375,824,793,600 ones and zeros to be exact. I know; it's a lot. That's why we found ways to make computers do most of that work for us. That's just the estimated hidden portion. Anyway, it's time to go to work. It's finally loaded," Nora said while looking at the screen.

"I'm not even going to try to comment on a number that gigantic," Glenn said while scratching his head.

"Ditto," Wisteria added.

The screen flashed a few times, followed by a screen that showed an older man with a large white beard on his face. His face shown only in different shades of blue.

"That must be him," Nora said with a surprised look on her face.

"That's him all right. That's Dr. Light. I forgot how much younger he looks in this picture than the last time I remember seeing him in person," X said.

Finally, the image started moving as if it were talking saying "Roll; this is an upgrade that I designed for you. This upgrade will boost your offense and defense. I urge you to only use this upgrade in times of crisis. I wish weapons of war like this one weren't necessary. I hope that you will only use this to protect those in need. I have faith that you will do the right thing."

The screen then read "LOADING ADDITIONAL MESSAGE."

This time, Dr. Light looked a little older than before, and he looked very sad.

He then said "Very unfortunate circumstances have lead to this. As it stands, I don't know if this upgrade will even be useful. I hope I will not have to find a replacement, but it may be necessary it seems. I will program this upgrade to search for and accept a replacement if it comes to that. Yes, that's what I will do."

The screen switched from his face to another screen that read "WARNING! SEVERAL PARTS ARE MISSING OR ARE IN NEED OF REPAIR. DO NOT INSTALL UNTIL UPGRADE IS COMPLETED. HOST CAN BE DAMAGED IF UPGRADE IS INSTALLED IN CURRENT STATE. THE LIST OF NEEDED REPAIRS ARE AS FOLLOWS…"

The screen switched to another one with a diagram of the upgrade and how to build each part.

"How convenient. It's even totally removable as I thought it would be. Not only that; the part about a possible replacement, it says…that it will adapt to the hosts physiology. Basically, it's actually just an armor as far as connecting to your body is concerned. It will need to connect to your ports, but it's not a total merger. It will fit over the shape of your body as long as its efficiency is not compromised. It will also boost your energy output levels by many times. I will see if I can make it adapt to your transformed state as well," Nora explained.

"There's no need for you to do that. All you need to do for now is have the device scan her body first. It will determine if the upgrade is safe or not and calculate the necessary adjustments needed on its own. The reason for finding a match is the energy signature. It won't work properly if the signatures aren't similar enough," X explained.

"That's even more convenient," Nora said as they all noticed the command prompt for the scan.

"Let's get this over with then," Melody said feeling slightly nervous as she walked over to the machine.

When she got there, Nora pressed the button to start the scan.

A manly sounding voice different from Dr. Light's sounded from the speakers saying "Scanning in progress."

Melody chose to remain completely still during the scan so the scan wouldn't fail.

"That's interesting. It says here that Roll was a girl. Did you know that, X?" Nora asked.

"Wow! I never read that far into it. I didn't know he made any girl robots. Come to think of it, that information could also be trapped somewhere in my latent memory. I tried to see if letting that thing scan me would somehow unlock my memory, but that didn't work. It just says error," X explained.

"That figures. Even I'm starting to become a bit curious as to what information he went way out of his way to hide," Wisteria said.

The computer voice then said "Scanning complete. Energy signatures compatible. Calculating adjustments for needed repairs."

"I think that's a little more than just a coincidence. What are the odds of mine and Roll's energy signatures being so close?" Melody asked with a surprised tone.

"Even I don't know the answer to that question," X answered.

"A puzzle indeed," Nora said.

"This'll probably sound strange, but I believe they may be, on a trans-dimensional level, doppelgangers," Wisteria suggested.

Nora, X, and Glenn asked in unison "What?"

"People usually attribute this kind of explanation to mysticism or occultism, but based on what I've studied, there are people who believe that it's quite possible that in alternate realities, a duplicate of sorts of everyone, may exist. They most likely won't look, act, or talk the same as each other, but they may be connected to each other in the form of their energy signatures, as X put it," Wisteria explained.

"Fascinating indeed," Nora said.

"So, they're not literal doppelgangers, but they're connected somehow. It only seems believable because of how statically impossible it seems for me to have found you this way so soon," X said.

Nora grinned and asked "You know X….if is true, then wouldn't that sort of make you and Melody…siblings?"

Both X and Melody blushed at the same time.

"I suppose, in a very odd sense…maybe," X said.

Melody then yelled "There's no way! You can't be serious. Wait; in order for that to really be true, wouldn't my dad have to be connected to Dr. Light in the same way?"

"Well now; you make a good point. Talk about not looking or acting the same way. They're nothing alike, and Dr. Locus was evil. No offense. I guess there's no way to find out since they're both *cough* retired," Nora said.

"Talk about complicated," Glen said.

The computer voice then said "Calculations complete. New parameters have been set. Upgrade is compatible with new hosts systems. Random Access Memory needed to be reallocated to accommodate hosts transformed state. When repairing unit, adding additional RAM is highly recommended, but not completely necessary. Additional RAM is necessary if host intends to use the unit's full power to insure safety. Proceed to next phase at your leisure."

"That settle's that. Adding RAM is not a difficult thing to do. Looks like you're in luck…if you're still willing to go through with it," Ms. Wakeman explained.

Melody sighed and said "Sure, why not. Just make sure that thing is safe. I'm not looking forward to being hurt by that thing."


	30. Chapter 30

The word had been spread around quite a bit by this point that Jenny and Sheldon were becoming closer. It was a little embarrassing for Jenny at first, but then she realized that it would be wrong for her to shy away from people whenever the subject is brought up since Sheldon is always working so hard to try to defend her.

Strangely enough, despite what she thought would happen, when she did try to defend him, the people around her didn't try even harder to pick on them. The more she pressed, the more they let up.

* * *

Jenny was sitting alone with Sheldon in a room somewhere in the base. There were many rooms in the base that were not occupied, so hiding themselves was a pretty easy thing to do.

"Since we are getting so close now…," Jenny said with a slight blush.

She leaned over and rested her body against Sheldon's. This made Sheldon blush pretty hard. He almost couldn't believe this was actually happening. It almost seemed like a dream. He took a chance and wrapped his left arm around her and grabbed her left shoulder. She didn't fight him off at all, she actually fit herself into the position he wanted.

"Don't worry about it, Sheldon. I'm not gonna hurt you," Jenny confirmed.

"Okay. I almost can't believe you're doing this," Sheldon said nervously.

Jenny's sensors detected that the nervousness in his voice did not equal the intensity of his giddiness.

She smiled and said "Stop worrying so much. I can tell you're a lot happier about this than you sound. You're still being too cautious. Try to relax."

"O-okay!" Sheldon said as he took a deep breath and loosened his tension some.

"That's better. Don't be hard on yourself. I've never done this before either," Jenny said in a way that revealed some of her nervousness."

Jenny reached over and grabbed his right hand with her left. That's when Sheldon noticed her nervousness. Knowing her make-up pretty well, he felt the odd tension when she grabbed his hand and began pulling it towards her.

Still blushing, Jenny said "So soft. It feels interesting. I never had the opportunity to really take my time feeling the human body with my hands. The more I do this, the more I'm sort of understanding what it's like to be human."

Just then, Jenny noticed Sheldon's internal body temperature rising. She looked at his face slightly puzzled. He then used the same hand she was holding onto to touch the side of her face. He slowly caressed her face and neck. She could tell he was really enjoying this. The overwhelming urge took her over as she pulled him close and kissed his lips. He also lost control and they both kissed passionately. Jenny then decided to be bold as she pushed her tongue inside his mouth slightly. This startled Sheldon a little. Jenny couldn't help but smile a little at his reaction. Sheldon decided to go with the flow and his tongue met hers. They kissed for a little while until they felt satisfied.

Breathing heavily Sheldon said "Man…if only. Forget it."

Jenny laughed a little and said "It's not in my design; at least not yet. Who knows, it could happen one day."

"And even if it was in your design, I don't think your mom would like it very much," Sheldon added.

"It would be pretty impossible to get that past her. Well…not entirely, but one thing is for sure, my design is one of the main reasons she isn't spying on me right now," Jenny explained.

With a look of realization on his face, Sheldon said "Oh! So she already knows what we're up to right now."

"Ah; good guess; but no. She is probably thinking of the possibility of this happening soon, but she likely would not guess at it happening this soon. We really haven't been missing long enough for people to have gotten that suspicious," Jenny explained.

"If you were the way you were when she built you, she'd guess the time and location of what we just did. You've become your own person since then. I understand it better now," Sheldon said.

"I'm more easily able to outsmart my mom than I used to be. Damn…I can't believe I just thought about that. What were you thinking when you made that unnecessarily sophisticated pencil sharpener?" Jenny asked with a grin.

"Huh? Oh yeah, outsmart. We had to outsmart Vexus. That's how you thought of that just now. I just wanted to make the most bad ass sharpener ever…that was compatible with your systems, of course. Now that I think of it, it was unnecessarily sophisticated. I did shutter a little when I tried to imagine Vexus getting caught in that thing. I did put some pretty powerful settings in that thing. That would've been a triumph for us, but way too gruesome a way to go for my tastes," Sheldon replied.

"I remember that thought crossing my mind too, but that would've been too much. I feel like I went too far with Smytus as it is. I'm not gonna keep going on that subject. Too depressing. Anyway, I'm just curious, so don't take this the wrong way, but were you ever seriously attracted to Vexus?"

Sheldon knew not to say too much, but he did say "I never thought you would ever ask me such a question. There was a time that I saw her that way, but she would never be able to surpass you."

With a blush, Jenny said "I can tell you really meant that? I didn't need to steal your master plan to notice that look in your eyes."

With a blush of his own, Sheldon said "I have yet to see another girl compare to you with these eyes. QT2; I barely even remember. You're the only girl I have my eyes set on."

Jenny smiled happily and hugged Sheldon. A few seconds later, he hugged her back.

Still holding onto him, she said "Thank you for always being there for me."

"You're welcome," he said.

* * *

The following day, the repairs for the upgrade were completed. Being pressed for time, Ms. Wakeman couldn't work on it by hand, so she had her machines do the job. She did inspect the completed armor a few times for flaws, but found none.

Quite a few people gathered around to see if the upgrade would actually work, including a few of the base's personnel.

"Don't worry. I worried the first time it happened to me, but it's not bad at all," X said.

"I hope so," Melody said.

"This should be very interesting considering the way X's turned out. I wish you luck, Melody," Brad said.

"Thanks," Melody replied.

Now standing in front of the device, Ms. Wakeman activated the upgrading process. Melody floated half a foot off the ground. First, the leg portion of the device lifted into the air and attached themselves to her legs. Second was her arms, followed by her upper body, then her head. The entire process of outfitting and linking to her software took a total of 44 seconds.

When she landed on the floor, Brad asked "How do you feel?"

A few seconds later, Melody replied "I actually feel pretty good. I never felt so powerful before. You might wanna watch out Red Angel. That was just a joke by the way. I don't want to you to go taking that as a challenge."

Angel laughed and said "For a second there, I thought you were being serious."

Her voice changed, and Grace said "I'm not looking…forward to that myself."

"I think that looks cool, Melody," Tuck commented.

"Lookin' good," Brad commented.

Melody started raising her power to the point where she started to glow. She can already do this, but instead of glowing orange as would normally happen, she started glowing a peach color.

"Be careful now. Don't get carried away and hurt someone," Nora said nervously.

"My output is already twice what I'm normally capable of, but the spread of my energy is more condensed. I'm not gonna power up any more than this in this small room," Melody assured.

Suddenly, Jenny made her body glow a little. Hers was the blue from before. Grace followed afterwards with red energy. Next was X which was a much lighter shade of blue. Last was Zero, which was a light shade of green. They didn't power up a lot; just enough to show that what melody was doing was nothing new though they didn't say it, and because seeing her power up the way she did made them all somewhat exited.

Taking several steps back, Wisteria said nervously "If this keeps up, I'm getting out of here."

Zero sighed and powered down. The others followed suit.

"Don't worry about it, ma'am. We're not about to start brawling out the blue. That would be absurd. We were flexing more than anything. It's the same as what body builders do," Zero explained.

"I'm sorry, but I'm just not used to this," Wisteria responded.

"My sister has spent a lot of time to herself in a violence free environment. When she is around, please try to tone it down some," Nora pleaded.

"All right. That's fine. I'll try to remember that," Melody said.

"You're more fortunate than you realize ma'am. In our world, there really aren't many places left at all to live the way that you do. Most of our so-called nature is synthetic. I know…I can tell by the way you're looking at me. I don't like it either. By the time I had the power to do anything about it, it was more than too late. I'm actually quite surprised that you still have so much natural plant life left in your world. Our world is messed up. I hope, for your sake, that you all do what you can to maintain what you have. I can't say I understand how precious nature is because I never lived in it. Even now, I wish I had the time to walk around in a naturally grown forest," X explained.

"Maybe now would be the time for someone with your skills to come out of isolation. You could do a lot of good with your talents, Wisteria," Angel suggested.

"Is that why you decided to come out of isolation?" Wisteria asked in a tone that sounded a little bit like an attack.

"I guess you can say that. My plans are a bit different though. And don't try the hypocrite blame with me when you clearly fall into the same category. I don't know why you felt it necessary to throw that verbal brick at me when I was only giving you a helpful suggestion. I swear; you can't help certain people," Angel said angrily as she made her way out of the room.

When the door closed, Wisteria said "She's more human than I thought. I know she's right. It's just…it's just not that easy for everyone to change their life suddenly like that. I imagine it wasn't easy for her either. I wish this were easier."

"It's not easy. I try to imagine what it'd be like for me to no longer have a reason to fight. I've been doing this for as long as I can remember. I'm looking forward to it, but I'm not looking forward to the withdrawals," Zero explained.

"It's kind of like a drug. I hate the idea of fighting and what it causes, but it's exhilarating. I hate the fact that me saying that makes me sound like a monster," Jenny said.

Wisteria sighed and said "I guess that's the nature of all things that live in this world. The more time I spend around robots, the more I see how similar we are. You guys are fighting for our sake everyday while I sit alone like a scared animal. I hid in a hole while those evil robots destroyed so many lives those few months ago. I talk about preserving life, and did nothing to stop them from destroying it, when I know I could have."

"You didn't do nothing. You weren't strong enough to defeat those robots, well, maybe a few of the weaker ones, if you really tried to. After the attack, you put your talents to use to help save many lives," Nora pointed out.

"Yes, but compared to how many lives were lost, what I did barely counted for anything," Wisteria added.

"Nonsense: that's just not true. I know how you feel, but you have to remember that no one person can do everything. You played your part well," Nora assured.

"I guess so," Wisteria said as if she was still unsure of herself.

Nora noticed the look on X's face just then. He seemed slightly angry.

"Is something wrong, X?" Nora asked.

Surprised, X was forced out of his daze by her question.

"Oh, sorry about that. It's not that serious. Anyway, I know how you feel, Wisteria. I know what it's like to feel as though my efforts don't count for much. I always wish I could do more. Reality is a real pain sometimes," X replied.

"But you're so brave, and you fight all the time. You've done so much more to help people than I ever have. I wish I were more like you," Wisteria complimented.

X began heading towards the door saying "You don't wanna be like me; believe me. I'll be near if any of you need me. I need some time to think."

When the door closed behind him, Tuck asked "Has anyone here noticed that he never seems happy?"

"You probably shouldn't be so loud when asking those kinds of questions," Brad said.

"Now that you mention it, I've only seen him smile once. There's a big difference behind the reason for a smile or for a grin," a base employee said.

"He's always like that. You guys might think you have it bad when it comes to worrying, but I know him, and he's constantly worrying…about everything. It's really nothing new, so don't worry about him too much," Zero explained.

Palette looked up from the computer she was working on and said "Even so, I can't help but be a little concerned about him. He's probably the last person I'd hate to see flip out and do something regrettable."

"I seriously doubt it. He's always worried that he might accidentally hurt somebody. The odds of him doing that are so very low," Zero assured.

"I hope you know him as well as you think you do," Melody said.


	31. Chapter 31

Later that day, Jenny was walking around the base alone. She didn't have anything better to do at the moment. She did have a lot on her mind that she was wrestling with. She began to question why events occur in the way that they do, on a grand universal scale. There were a few times in the past that this thought passed through her mind, but it was only recently that she really spent large amounts of time thinking on the subject.

According to her, there had to be an answer. She noticed that most people tend not to think about such things; or at least it seemed that way. Even if they did, they never talk about it, to her knowledge. To her, it felt as though there was some kind of difficult to decipher pattern, or rhyme of sorts, to the way the events of life and reality as she knew it happen. She made a decision. As she walked, she decided to set a portion of her processor that she normally didn't use to attempt to try to record and evaluate the frequency of occurrences based on a list of categories. At a later time, she planned to consciously evaluate the information gathered and try to make some form of logical sense out of it.

She made her way to the end of a long hallway when she heard what sounded as though someone was in distress. She barely heard it, but she instinctively reacted to it. She opened the door to the room she believed the sounds to be coming from and ran to a closet. The noise stopped, but she opened it anyway.

Surprised, Jenny said "Vexus!"

Vexus was sitting in a closet crying with her back against a wall. She stared back up at Jenny. Slowly, Jenny rested her knees on the floor.

With a concerned tone, Jenny asked "What's wrong? Why are you crying?"

Trying to calm herself, Vexus said "Somehow…I thought…I was afraid you were…going to grin…and say something about how…ironic it is that I'm in this state."

Jenny felt a sudden surge of emotion flow through her body, and then she said "No! No, I can't do that to you. That was the old me. I know you're trying to change. I would be wrong for trying to make it harder for you that way. Umm…to tell you the truth, I've been really worried about you for a long time now. I'm serious! I know we were once enemies, but I don't want us to be enemies anymore. You've been alone for a long time now trying to survive on the bare minimum. I've been worrying that that must've been very hard for you. At first, I thought you deserved everything you were getting, and I can't believe I even laughed and thought it was funny. I hate myself for that. Later, I spent time trying to imagine what it must've been like to live like that, and after a while, the thought became depressing. I'm so sorry for putting you through that."

Staring at Jenny surprised, Vexus said "You've changed so much. I thought you were just being nice to me to put on a show for your family and friends. How can you be nice to a monster like me?"

Jenny raised her voice a little and replied "You have done terrible things. I can't lie and say those things never happened. I also can never forget them either. I just know that nothing can be done to undo that damage. Holding grudges doesn't help make things better either. I want things to be better than they were. I don't want to be angry at you anymore. I don't think being mean to you is going to help any of us."

A moment later, Vexus said "I don't want us to be angry with each other anymore either. I just didn't know how you'd feel about it. I'll answer your question, but please don't tell anyone about this."

"I won't. I promise," Jenny assured.

Vexus lowered her defenses, and in a trembling voice, she explained "It just feels a little embarrassing. I…was crying because of how…lonely I am. I spent so much time away from people that it became really depressing. I thought I didn't need anybody: that I was totally self-sufficient: that I was completely emotionally secure. I thought I'd be fine on my own. I thought I was going mad with only Smytus and Krackus to talk to, but when they were gone, I slowly became this. The first time I cried in over a thousand years was a little over a month ago. I still feel lonely even with all these people around because I can plainly see how everyone either avoids me at all times, and the ones that do talk to me, only do so to settle some curiosity or to handle business. I thought Zero had become comfortable talking to me, but he hasn't said a word to me in almost two weeks. I don't know what to think sometimes."

A moment later, Jenny asked "Are you saying that you want a friend?"

"I need you to keep one more secret. I have made one friend. She's a human of all people. I know you're surprised. I don't want to explain how it all happened right now. I can't reveal her name for her protection. I haven't seen her since shortly before I turned myself in. That's why I still feel lonely. There more time I spend alone, the more depressed I feel. I wish I could spend time with her again, but I don't want to put her in danger," Vexus explained.

Jenny pulled Vexus close and hugged her. Needless to say, but Vexus a little more than surprised.

Jenny then said in a calm comforting voice "If you want; I can be your friend, number two."

Vexus lost control of her emotions and hugged her back very tightly as she started crying.

About a minute later, she said while still crying "I never thought…I'd see the day. I was so afraid…that we'd…always be enemies. I can't stand…seeing you suffer anymore…either. I don't ever…want to see you try to kill yourself again."

Jenny now looked as if she could cry too.

A moment later, Vexus asked "Do you really…want to…be my friend?"

"Mm hmm," Jenny answered with a trembling voice.

By this time, Vexus wasn't crying as much, and she said "I want…to be your friend too."

Jenny then pleaded "Please don't return to your old ways. I don't want to fight you anymore. I really do want our friendship to work."

A few seconds later, Vexus replied, "You don't need to worry about that. I don't ever want to hurt anyone again. I'm so sick of my old ways that I could throw up like a human."

"That's a very big relief. And don't worry, I won't tell anyone about this until you are ready," Jenny assured.

* * *

"Thank you," Vexus said.

Meanwhile, in the Maverick base, Sigma was standing still observing how intensely Burn Rooster was training. His strongest physical attacks were his kicks. Each time he kicked something made of metal, it sounded similar to thunder. A minute later, he paused from his training and looked at Sigma with an impatient expression.

"Sorry for my insolence, but I'm tired of waiting around here, master. When are you planning to attack them again?" Rooster asked.

"I admire your enthusiasm, but you have to remember that their forces have grown stronger. To make matters worse, the Wakeman robot, XJ9 has gotten stronger than before, and so has her sisters. With one shot, XJ2 rendered Gravity Beetle's arm mostly useless. We don't even know what The Red Angel is capable of. Let me ask you this then. Why do we lose every damned battle against X and Zero?" Sigma asked.

"I only fought with you once, so all I've gathered, was that it was a preparation issue," Rooster guessed.

"You're correct, but that's not all. What usually happens is that what we think is enough power is not enough. This, of course, means that we have to do something drastic to win. I also plan to fight dirty…even more so than usual. There are certain limits that I usually set for myself, but it looks like we're going to have to surprise them with how low we're usually willing to sink to win. Do you think that's a bad way to go about it? Be honest" Sigma prompted.

Rooster couldn't help but laugh.

When he stopped, he answered "Of course not. I was wondering when you'd start using more underhanded tactics. I'm not looking forward to being scrapped again. That Blaze Heatnix was a strange one. He'd rather test his strength against someone than sneak up behind them. That's the way it is with a lot of the others. I say we fight as dirty as possible."

Sigma grinned and said "Yes, the way of the proud warrior just isn't working anymore. This is that time in history where we should throw out those ideas, at least until this war is over. The answer to your question is very soon. The final preparations are close to completion. High-Max's modifications have been completed today. Everything else is only a matter of time."

"That's good to hear. I can't wait," Rooster said.

* * *

"INTRUDER ALERT IN CENTRAL COMMAND ROOM!" Sounded the alarm system.

All capable fighters headed to the room as quickly as possible. They all feared the worst. No one could seem to understand how anyone made it past the security system at the main entrance to begin with.

When they all arrived, the intruder was nowhere to be found.

"This makes no sense. Where is this person…or thing? We don't even know what we're dealing with," A male soldier yelled.

He wasn't the only confused one.

"There is definitely something in this room that's not supposed to be here. I can feel it, but I can't find it," Angel explained.

"I will show myself…if you promise not to attack," A very familiar voice said.

"You gotta be kidding," Sheldon said.

"Misty?" Jenny yelled shocked.

"Seriously? I thought she wasn't coming back," Sheldon said.

"Everyone; lower your weapons, but don't deactivate them. If you don't attack us, we won't attack you," Jenny yelled.

As soon as the others did, a purple cloud accumulated from inside the ventilation shafts into the center of the room. The cloud took a humanoid shape, then it formed the Misty that Jenny remembered, or so it seemed at first.

"You look like you've been through something harsh," Jenny commented on Misty's expression.

"Is that really all you have to say to me after not seeing me for two years?" Misty asked angrily.

"Well, shit; what the hell am I supposed to say to you? You really expect me to greet you with open arms after you beat the fuck out of me. You were going to kill me too if my memory serves me right," Jenny responded.

"I should've guessed that'd be the memory you've been focusing on all this time. I thought you'd be angrier at my methods than something I did to you. Shows how much of a selfless hero you really are," Misty retorted.

You're really pushing it. I'm mad at both, dammit. Being willing to kill people to save people is not hero work at all. I didn't understand the concept of a mercenary that much until later on. Even if you are one, that doesn't make it okay to use those kinds of tactics," Jenny explained.

"Do you know what hell is like?" Misty asked in a distressed tone.

This question shocked everyone.

"What? Where did that come from?" Jenny asked.

"I don't know either, but I feel like I've been through something similar. Most of that shit that happened back then, I don't even care about anymore. I've spent the past few months piecing my mind back together, and I know I'll never be the same again. Things change. That's the way life goes; but how did that nice little life we had back then become this? First, you get depressed and try to off yourself, and then my life goes to shit too. I thought it was just that Earth was having a bad luck streak, but I see crazy shit happening all over the place. I bet you're tired of hearing this, but even Vexus is fighting through a crisis. Ending up here had to have been a long and painful journey for that woman," Misty explained.

"It was indeed. That's one thing about young people. They seem to believe that they're immune to tragedy. I'm no better though. I trained and fashioned my mind into believing I was invincible too," Vexus added.

"I bet you want to know why I'm here. I don't have a reason to explain myself, but I'm here to let you know I'm going to help you all fight those Maverick people I heard so much about," Misty explained.

"How do I know Sigma didn't hire you to destroy me? Jenny asked.

"What the fuck? The past must've really put a stain on your brain. I'm a mercenary, not a person willing to aid in the destruction of an entire race. I don't trust that bastard anyway. Besides, other people's lives are more important to me now than they were back then. If it weren't for our differences, I would've probably never been able to see that," Misty explained.

Jenny calmed down some and said "You're definitely telling the truth. I can tell. I know you well enough. If you came in here looking the way you used to, and if you had the same demeanor, I would have a hard damned time believing you. I've been through extreme stress myself, and I can tell you've been changed by your recent experiences. There's just one problem. I just don't understand why you of all people would want to help us. I'm at a total loss."

Misty then began breathing heavily and staring very intensely at her violently shaking hands.

She then said in a very harsh tone "I…don't. I don't even know for sure! Why am I…helping someone else without expecting something…in return?"

She then fell on her knees and buried her face in her hands. Before she knew it, she felt Jenny's left hand on her left shoulder. She looked up at Jenny very quickly as though she were prepared for an attack. She noticed that Jenny was looking away from her at the floor with anguish in her eyes.

"Why are so many people falling apart, Misty?" Jenny asked.

Misty then replied "I don't know. It's like the hand of fate broke one of its bones and it's making us suffer for it."

Jenny then had one of the most awkward looking grins that any of them had ever seen. The pain was still quite prominent in her eyes.

"I kinda wish I could prove that…only so I could have something to blame. Then I would get shit from people around me about how that's the cowards way of looking at life," Jenny said.

Her frown returned, and then she said "I don't know what happened to you. I hope you get better. I think that you're volunteering to help because you don't know what else to do. That sounds strange, but…I believe I'm right."

Misty involuntarily took a deep strained breath, and then yelled "I don't know what else to do! I feel…a part of me…missing. I need to find it. I don't know where I lost it. I feel like a dog, retracing its steps. It's not like a buried bone…that I can reach out and grab. If it was tangible, I would've grabbed the first bone I could find, and use it as a replacement. I wouldn't be here now."

"Are you telling me the truth when you said that our differences no longer matter to you?" Jenny asked while staring Misty directly in her eyes.

"They are the least of my concerns. Focusing on settling that old score is meaningless," Misty answered.

"You also said you wouldn't play a part in destroying a whole race of people. Is that on just a grand scale, or are you still willing to sacrifice a few for your own gain? If that's the case, we have no room for that kind of philosophy," Jenny said.

"You must be referring to that comment I made about breaking a few eggs to make an omelet. I don't see the world the same way I did back then. Everything looks the same, but totally different too. Man, this sounds crazy. I've never been the one to be able…to imagine myself in someone else's shoes for most of my life. It took me a long time to grasp that concept in my mind. What if I was one of those children? What if I was one of those patients? What if I was about to be destroyed by a blind fool? I never asked myself such questions before my crisis," Misty explained.

Jenny smiled slightly and said "Now that you can understand that, you can begin to imagine what kind of stress Vexus must've gone through to be where she is now. If she was still like you were, I wouldn't be able to place as much trust in her as I do. Change isn't easy, and I'm not expecting you to get used to it easily. As far as our differences are concerned, I've been wanting to end that shit for a long time now. I was really hoping it wouldn't have to end in bloodshed. Since that no longer seems to be the case, I was hoping that…"

Misty cut Jenny off by grabbing her hand and saying "I was wrong to think of you as my enemy. You were only doing what you thought was right by telling me to leave. You feared for those you swore to protect. If your friendship with me had to die to save lives, you were willing to make that sacrifice. You were the only real friend I ever had. I tried hard to ignore that horrible feeling I had in my heart when we separated, but I failed that one miserably. We are still friends…right?"

Trying her best not to cry, Jenny answered "Sure. Of course we are."

She was about to cry not only because of the reunion, but also because of how much Misty's hand was trembling. She could only imagine the ordeal she must've had. Misty stood up slowly, and they hugged each other. A feeling of relief that a battle wasn't about to begin spread throughout the room. The others barely understood their issues, but they were happy for them.

"Are you okay, Jenn?" Misty asked concerned.

Barely able to control her emotions, Jenny asked "What happened to you? You seem…so weak. Your hands are…shaking…so badly. You look like you haven't…slept or eaten in weeks. How can someone so strong end up like…this?"

"Please. I don't want to talk about it right now, much less think about it. I promise I'll explain it to you later, but not in front of a bunch of people I don't even know very well," Misty pleaded.

A few seconds later, while trying to regain her composure, Jenny said "You wanna keep it…between friends. Okay…that's fine. I'll wait."


	32. Chapter 32

The following morning, as Jenny and Misty were playing catch up with each other, Vexus sat alone as usual in one of the empty rooms. Instead of staring into space, this time, she was reading about the history of human space exploration on the internet. After reading about half of the information on that website, she decided to take a break. She leaned back in the chair and thought about how young the human race seems.

"_They are an old race. They just behave as though they are young. No wonder it took them so long to develop_," She thought to herself.

She felt a little better about herself now that she was able to settle that long overdue issue with Jenny. She also now had a new friend, which was good. She wished it wasn't so difficult to break the news that she made up with Jenny to everyone else. It was only then that she realized how shy she actually was. Speaking of which, her eyes widened, her body tensed up, and a blush went across her face as she recognized the pattern of footsteps approaching the door to the room she was in.

The door opened behind her and she heard Zero's voice saying "I was wondering where you've been."

She immediately got rid of her blush and turned around as though she were surprised.

"You scared me. I was prepared to use my eye lasers if you had been an enemy," Vexus said.

"Did I come at a bad time?" Zero asked concerned about her comment.

"No. Not at all," Vexus answered.

"All right. Can I come in?" Zero asked.

"Sure!" Vexus answered.

Zero closed the door behind himself and leaned against a wall near Vexus since there were no other chairs in the room.

"I feel like I've been neglecting you these past couple of weeks. I hope you didn't take that personally," Zero said.

"Not really. I was worried for a little while though. I understand how busy you've been with helping make preparations. Oh, yes, that's right. I almost forgot. I heard some of your teammates saying something about you receiving a call from your commander," Vexus said.

Zero's expression went cold, and then he asked "You heard about that, huh?"

Concerned, Vexus asked "It's not bad news, is it?"

"He's not calling me to return home or anything. It's different. It's about that navigator that recently turned out to be a Maverick in disguise," Zero answered.

"What happened then?" Vexus asked.

Zero took a slow deep breath, and then answered "The call I got from Signas wasn't the bad part. He was letting me know that Layer sent a message to me through Jenny. Jenny received the message after Layer managed to escape from the prison she was in. By the time Jenny had the chance to check the message, Layer had been caught again. I had no idea. I never thought…"

Zero paused for a second, and then Vexus asked "What did she say/"

"That woman. I never noticed. She was crying and apologizing to me. I didn't understand at first. I was wondering what reason she had to apologize to me for. Why me? This is the way the story seems to have happened. Sigma noticed something about her one day that surprised him. He took advantage of it, of course. He promised her that if she worked for him…that he would find a way for her to get to…me. She was…so in love…with me that…she became a Maverick. How the hell did she assume…? She said she thought that Sigma would make me into a Maverick so that…we would be together. Such a manipulative bastard: that Sigma; taking advantage of her irrationality," Zero replied angrily.

"You're saying…that you never noticed that she was in love with you?" Vexus asked trying not reveal her fear about his upcoming answer.

"Not at all. It's only now, when I think back on her behavior, that I can see obvious signs," Zero answered with a barely noticeable blush.

"What about you? What are your feelings for her?" Vexus asked.

"I can't really say I had feelings for her. I rarely ever paid any attention to her. Besides; *sigh* it would never work now even if I began to see her that way. Sigma is a son of a…" Zero stopped himself from being so profane.

Vexus had a huge mental sigh of relief, and then she said "I do feel sorry for her. There are many people who chase after dreams that seem to have no chance of success. She probably obsessed over you the way Sheldon obsesses over Jenny."

Zero blushed bright red, and then he said "That…is making me feel kind of…uncomfortable."

Vexus laughed and said "I guess I went too far that time. It seems to me that you are really not used to women trying to approach you."

"No, I'm not," Zero verified while still blushing.

Vexus then took a chance by saying "That seems odd to me. You have the looks of one of those pretty boy rock star guys that girls seem to flock to so much. Maybe you seem really intimidating to them as well."

Blushing even harder, Zero said "No one has ever…said that kind of thing to me before."

With a wide grin, Vexus said "Maybe I should stop before you're face becomes as red as your armor."

Zero struggled to regain his composure; and when he finally did, he said "That was too much all at once. Wow. Okay. I'm all right. Wait; maybe I should've asked you? Have you ever had a significant other?"

Vexus laughed and then replied "You got me. You managed to turn it all against me like I've been doing to you. Truthfully, I never really did. I've had a few temporary boyfriends a long time ago before I became queen. None of them are even alive anymore. I don't even miss any of them because there was no love in any of those relationships."

Two thousand years," Zero said.

"Huh?" Vexus asked.

"You're over two thousand years old, and you haven't had a real significant other. Don't take this the wrong way because I'm just concerned. Does that make you feel lonely?" Zero asked.

Vexus's smile slowly turned into a frown as she lowered her head some and looked down.

"I can't lie to you. That does make me feel lonely. In fact, it's quite depressing sometimes," Vexus replied.

"I'm sorry if I'm pushing too hard, but I've been wondering why you're missing most of the time. It's always so hard to find you around here. Is it because you feel alienated?" Zero asked.

A few seconds later, Vexus replied "Yes, I do. I have to live with that though. People haven't forgotten the crimes I'm responsible for so quickly."

"You also spent those couple of years alone. It must've been tough. Two thousand years! That's hard even for me to imagine. I've been wondering about it for a while now: what it's like to live that long and the many memories you must have stored. If I'm asking too much, just let me know. I'd like to know more about your life…if that's okay with you," Zero said.

A moment later, Vexus explained "My life really has been a long one for sure. I actually don't know of anyone alive who is older than me. I'm so old now, that I'm considered an anachronism by some people. My earliest memories, besides my activation day, were of the times I spent on the space ship flying around the galaxy with my father and the rest of the crew. We were all slaves, forced to do whatever our masters wanted. I was such a small girl at that time. I've been through several upgrades since. Our masters behaved a lot like the ancient Egyptians of this world did, with the exception of some of their religious beliefs and the fact that they had advanced technology at their disposal. That's the reason for my appearance. I hated them for what they did to us, but I still found myself modeling a great portion of my life after them. I guess that's because that's all I knew while growing up. As a child, my daily tasks were cooking, cleaning, applying makeup to the noble's faces, and a long list of other chores that varied from day to day. I was often worked to the point of needing extensive repairs. They would often intentionally delay my scheduled maintenance in hopes that I would give up. If I had, they would've scrapped me. It was the same for a lot of the other robots. My father received better treatment only because he was able to do more work than I was. One of the many good things about him was that he would often try to repair parts of my body that he knew how. If he hadn't, I probably would've given up. He would often comfort me when I needed it. I remember not making much of an effort to make friends with the others my age. They thought of me as an odd girl because of how much I isolated myself from them. I found more comfort in my relationship with my father than with the rest of the crew. I remember how jealous I was when he would pay so much attention to that one lady. I didn't understand romantic relationships at the time. I soon got over it though. A few years rolled by, and I became interested in this one little boy named R-46. I still didn't understand romance, but he did make me feel better about myself. I still don't think of him as being a significant other because we hardly had much time to spend with each other and the romance factor was non-existent. We were friends for a while until I discovered one day that he was dying of a terrible software malfunction. I begged and pleaded with our masters to help him, but they did nothing. Minutes before he died, he let me know that he'd been living with this problem all his life. They made him cheap on purpose knowing that he might not live very long. When I realized that, I went into a berserker fury and attacked all of the technicians. He died in the middle of my rampage. I only managed to kill one of them before I was captured and thrown into solitary confinement for a year. They realized that my father never once urged me to rise up against our masters, so he wasn't punished. If it weren't for the fact that I was as good at doing my chores as I was, they would've destroyed me. When I was released, that's when it happened. The other robots cheered for me for what I tried to do. That was the first time I developed a thirst for power. It was so very small, but I felt it. From that point on, I slowly developed ways to become devious, cunning, manipulative, and various other negative little skills to inch my way to having more power. As a child though, those skills weren't considered bad because they were actually helping us robots have a somewhat better quality of life. My father noticed the potential of my skills being used for evil, and he warned me, but I didn't really listen obviously. I didn't see that what I was doing, and what I was becoming, was bad. I forgot to tell you; but most of the things I've told you so far I only recently remembered in the past few months."

"How did that manage to happen?" Zero asked.

"I'm very old. A lot of what I do remember from that long ago is fuzzy. My mental time line is so long, that I've become a lot like a flesh being. I've actually, without realizing it, started prioritizing long term memories so heavily that I've actually forgotten a lot of the smaller details even though some of them were very important events. Anyway, as I was saying, I remember helping lots of robots win favor from our masters: mostly those who needed a smaller work load because of their limitations. I also forgot to mention. There were a few cases where nobles would take a robot as a concubine. I know; that was sudden, but just bare with me. Ordinary citizens would never here of such cases because it was a well kept secret. It was a secret because a citizen was looked down upon for even looking at a robot in that manner. I was once almost chosen to be one of those concubines, but if I had, I likely would've killed that man for trying to touch me that way. I was disgusted by that kind of hypocrisy. Plus, I was still a child at the time. That made me even angrier that he considered me as a possibility. Anyway, those robots I helped thanked me, and in return, some of them helped me when I needed it. Our masters eventually noticed that I was becoming popular, but they couldn't really figure out why. Every time I manipulated them, it was too subtle for them to notice that I was doing it on purpose. Even though I was the one coming out on top in those situations, I still managed to make them believe that they were still in control. If anybody's life had become too well off, they would've discovered my hand in it. One day years later, I had my first upgrade. It wasn't much. It was mostly to make my appearance match my age. I discovered how much stronger I was in that new body, and when that happened, I devised an escape plan. I got most of the other robots to work together with me. By the time they knew we were up to something, they were mostly powerless to stop us. If we were on our master's home planet, escape would've been next to impossible. Being on that ship made it much easier. In all seriousness, we didn't escape the ship, we made our masters escape with their lives, and then we piloted that ship far away from any of our master's territory. We had to make the ship untraceable as well. We landed on a planet inhabited mostly by large animals and a few tribal people. They were made aware of our presence, but we managed to get them to understand our dilemma, and we came to an agreement that we would stay out of their territories unless a trade agreement could be made. We managed to get along with them well enough, besides one incident where they scolded us for allowing one of our small children to wander off into a cave they considered to be sacred. They excused us because he was a child and was ignorant. There was, fortunately for us, some drilling equipment on that ship, and we drilled for oil to survive on. We knew not pollute the planet. Angering the natives would've been bad for us. They did discover what we were doing at some point, and they asked us about it because they were concerned. We explained to them that the oil under the ground was necessary for our survival. They then discovered that there was actually a use for that black liquid after all. Since the drilling was taking place so far away from their homes, they didn't really mind. It wasn't too long after that though, that we knew that someday, we would need to find a way to save the rest of our people. By that time, I was only fourteen. Over the years, we managed to learn how to build our own machines and we basically built our own little society. We never made an attempt to impose our ideas and technology on the natives. We never tried to inconvenience them either. Starting a war with them would not have helped our situation at all. When I was twenty four years old, a rumor had spread around that a man from the tribal village to the south had somehow developed a crush on me. I thought that was very strange, but I think it started only because of how popular I was. I was flattered at the thought though. I wasn't really the leader by the way. I didn't feel I had what it took to be that. We eventually built a ship of our own capable of long distance space travel. We managed to find ways to rescue small groups of our people at a time from different space ships and different planets without being traced to our settlement. We eventually realized though, that if our location ever was discovered, the natives would also be in grave danger. We explained our realization to them, and they understood why we had to leave. As a society, we couldn't stay, but a few of them stayed behind because of the relationship they had with the natives. They were never discovered by our former masters either. Hundreds of years worth of war with our oppressors passed like an eternity. I never imagined as a child that it would be so difficult to win our people's freedom. After witnessing the atrocities committed against our people for so long, I began to hate all flesh wearers. I realized that I never really even liked those natives anyway. It was some of the others that liked them. I hardly paid attention to them. We were making quite a bit of progress, until my father and I, and some of the others were finally captured. They made my life feel like I was in hell. It was bad for my father as well, but not nearly as bad as it was for me. I defended him by saying that I was the one that started the first revolt. They believed me, and I suffered for a long time. My hatred for all flesh beings grew to a height of untold proportions. The war between the escapees and the oppressors continued while I was a slave again. The other slaves had heard of us, and of me. When I was moved to a crowded holding cell, the slaves there treated me as though I were their leader, even though I had never met either of them. I discovered why, and I immediately began trying to find a way to use that to my advantage. I was out working in the mines one day when I met a large man that saved me from falling debris. That man's name was Smytus," Vexus explained.

"So that's how you two met," Zero said.

"That's right. He was a strange one. He didn't get along with the other slaves very well because of cocky attitude and because he was also a person known to be a murderer of both our masters and of some of our own people, but mostly because of personal disputes. I quickly added him into my plans. He immediately agreed to help once he knew what my plans were. It actually took a few hundred years for the stage to be set for the plan to be successful. Part of the stage being set was for me to escape again along with a lot of the others. It worked. By that time, my father had fallen in love with a woman. I think you might already know where this is going. She was killed one day months after our escape by a few of our oppressors. He lost control of himself, gathered up some of our comrades, and headed out to attack the base where the ones who killed her were located. He died in the process. When I saw his ruined body, I almost lost all hope. Some of the others dragged me away from him and carried me back to where we were living. Word spread that I had lost my resolve, but hope was still just as strong because the plan for the revolution could be completed with or without my leadership. Another person was chosen as the leader, and I was fine with that at the time. When the revolution started, I built up the strength to fight alongside my people. When we won, there was a debate over how our society should be built and governed. I felt as though the current leader had terrible ideas about how to run things, plus he had become big-headed with how much power he had. It wasn't that he had a different view. It was that he was very unrealistic about it. I challenged him for the role of leader, and he told me that if I wanted my position back, that I would have to kill him for it, and I did. My people liked me more anyway, so they didn't really mind me killing him. They were glad to have me back in charge. A few of our former masters had escaped the planet that day, but we didn't bother them for the time being. Now, it's one thing to be the talk of the town, but it's a whole different kind of experience to be the talk of the entire planet. We decided that we didn't really like that planet, but we did plunder it for all it was worth before leaving. We traveled the galaxy for years before we finally found the planet we wanted. After giving it much thought, I decided to name it Cluster Prime. It was uninhabited by intelligent creatures, so building our homes there wasn't much of a challenge. When the construction of our paradise was finished, the people saw fit to grant me the title of queen. I was a little shocked by the promotion, but I accepted. That's when I felt more powerful than ever. In a lot of ways, I felt as though it were my right, my destiny. I appointed Smytus as my personal bodyguard since he was such a skilled fighter in the revolution. I also appointed Krackus as one of my top engineers. Over time, I was becoming more and more manipulative, without actually even realizing it at first. My power over my people grew so great, that many of them began to wonder if I was doing it on purpose. Someone protested against me one day, after seventy three years in power, saying that I was quickly becoming a dictator, and that the people won't stand for it if I don't give more power back to the people. For the first time in my reign, I felt threatened. For me, it was no longer about helping my people grow stronger; it was about the power I had. I knew I had become greedy, but I didn't care. My control over the economy was so great, that most people couldn't protest me if they wanted for fear of losing everything they had. The government was democratic at first, but I turned it into a complete dictatorship over time. I was no longer loved by all the people; only a small portion: the elite, and the hopelessly dependent. I did feel offended by their hatred. I asked them how they could treat me this way after I made this paradise possible for them in the first place. They told me that it was no longer a paradise for the people. It was a paradise only for those who had tremendous funds. The nobles didn't want to sacrifice their power or wealth for the good of the people either. In those days…I couldn't see past all of the splendor of the palace that I lived in to notice the living conditions of the ghettos that were becoming more numerous around the planet. I had already forgotten what it was like to live at the bottom of society. The people then decided that they were going to leave our world and go somewhere else. They felt as though they couldn't afford to lose any more than they had. A good plan, but I decided to pass a law forbidding anyone to leave without my permission. I didn't explain why, but they knew I was only just trying to keep the power I had over them. I acted quickly by building up our defenses in case of a revolution against me. A couple of years later, a revolution was attempted, but by then, they didn't stand a chance. A small portion of me felt as though maybe this wasn't a good thing for me to do, but I wiped out most of them anyway. Smytus and Krackus both didn't have a problem with it, and neither did the rest of my loyal subjects. To this day, there is an enormous amount of destroyed robot bodies piled up in a field on Cluster Prime. Most of those bodies were the robots I had destroyed. Jenny was there once, but she has no clue of why those bodies are there. Most of the citizens today are also unaware of why. My own daughter doesn't even know why. I destroyed all records of the event. The grounds are off limits anyway; at least that's the way it was when I left. My list of crimes and atrocities was already very long as it was. After the massacre, it was discovered that our wealth would diminish slowly over time. The remaining people didn't supply a large enough work force to maintain our power for very long, so we decided to go find more wealth and people to enslave to increase our wealth and expand my empire. I had become a monster: the very kind of monster I hated as a child, and I didn't care. The power I had kept me in a state of constant high, like a drug. I was living the life of a queen; it wasn't just a title. My rationale was 'Who would want to give this up? I obtained what no one else in my race had, so I should do everything I could to keep it, and then obtain more.' After enslaving enough people who were mostly helpless again my power, and allying myself with those I wouldn't dare try to attack, there was no turning back. By then, my transformation into a monster had become complete. My name quickly became infamous. I became so powerful within only a hundred years time, I had begun to think that I could actually conquer the entire universe, and I tried to. My hatred towards flesh beings was one of my major motivators. I see now that what I was really doing was lashing out at what made my childhood a living hell. I also had many more robot citizens made that were unaware of the ugly past. It's really pathetically pointless if you think about it because over ninety seven percent of the population can't appreciate the struggle of earning their freedom and the creation of Cluster Prime. I had my daughter made one day when I had the first real thought about needing an heir to the throne in case I did somehow get removed from the picture. I just never knew she would play a part in removing me," Vexus explained.

A brief moment of silence followed as they stared each other directly in their eyes.

"Are you feeling okay?" Vexus asked.

"I enjoyed your story. I find your life to be a fascinating one. There's just one little thing though. I just want you to know that I don't have anything against you as you are now, and the person you are trying to become. You did, however, manage to do everything that we've been trying to prevent Sigma from doing. I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but…if killing you would bring back all those people you killed and repair all those lives you destroyed, I'd let my saber rip you to tiny shreds. That is a fantasy scenario though. Real life doesn't work that way," Zero replied with a surprisingly calm tone.

Vexus hung her head in shame and said "I knew you'd be angry with my past before I started, but I've been wanting to tell someone my story for a long time now. I needed to get all of that off my chest. Thank you for listening."

A few seconds later, Vexus's voice began trembling saying "I just want you to know that if killing me would undo the damage I caused…"

She then put her hand over her chest and said "I'd allow you to impale me right here without resistance. This spot is the quickest way to end my life. All you would need is to stab me right here once with all your strength."

Surprised, Zero said "I can't believe…you would tell me exactly where…and how to kill you. That's not wise. Why would you do that?"

She balled the hand she placed on her chest into a fist, and then replied "They say that no amount of money can equal a life, and if that's true, then my debt is immeasurable by the understanding of mortals. I know that my life ending won't make things better, but if it would, I would ask you to kill me where I sit. I'm not trying to do good things to try to repay my debt. That is a debt that can never be repaid anyway. I just want to make what is already here better in any way I can. I'm telling you how to kill me should it ever come down me or the Earth."

A moment later, Zero sighed and said "If I didn't give you a chance to redeem yourself, I would be the hypocrite. I would only prove that my trying to convince Mavericks to turn from their ways was only to make myself look good. I really do want them to change, but none of them do. Since that has been the case, many of them have fallen by my blade. It makes me angry how depressing that is. Don't worry about me. I'm not angry at you. You are trying to do the right thing. Believe me; I would only try to kill you as a final resort."

Vexus looked up at Zero's face again and said "Now; I'm not trying to say that I'm considering returning to my old ways. That will never happen. Admittedly, I was afraid that you would hate me. I think of you as a friend to me, and I wouldn't want there to be animosities between us."

Zero closed his eyes, smiled, and then said "A friend, huh? I guess we never did make that official. I don't mind having you as a friend."

Vexus smiled and said "I admit I was a little nervous about saying that, but...there you go. I guess it's official."

"I guess so," Zero affirmed.

* * *

Jenny stared into the distance imagining odd scenarios in her mind that she really wouldn't want to discuss with other people. They were kind of inappropriate, but not necessarily naughty. She was having breakfast with Misty. They spent three hours or so talking about the past couple of years.

She then had a flashback of when Vexus said "I still feel lonely even with all these people around because I can plainly see how everyone avoids me at all times, and the ones that do talk to me, only do so to settle some curiosity or to handle business. I thought Zero had become comfortable talking to me, but he hasn't said a word to me in almost two weeks. I don't know what to think sometimes."

She first wondered why she thought of that all of a sudden, and then it hit her. She started laughing out loud at what she just realized.

Misty grinned a little and said "I know you. That laugh lets me know you just thought of something I might want to know about."

"Seriously, don't say anything to embarrass her. I'd rather just let this take its course. I think…that maybe…Vexus has a crush on Zero," Jenny explained.

Surprised, Misty laughed herself. Her laughs were louder and more uncontrolled than they used to be before her insanity trip.

"Wow! That's hard to believe. It's not Zero. That guy is what most girls would go crazy over; but Vexus? I didn't think she'd ever look at a man that way. That's funny," Misty said.

Jenny smiled and said "I'm glad you're smiling again."

"Being around you is the most fun I've had in a long time. And don't worry; the old me would've embarrassed her in a heartbeat, but I'm not gonna do that to her," Misty assured.

"That's a relief. She's already under enough stress as it is. We all need a break," Jenny said.

"I hear ya on that one," Misty said.


	33. Chapter 33

Later on that night, the alarm sounded in Jenny's head letting her know a crime was in progress. She was particularly annoyed that someone would be causing trouble with the Maverick threat still being at large.

As she headed out to the scene of the crime, she got a call from the city's chief of police.

She activated her communicator and asked "Would you happen to be the chief?"

"Yes ma'am. I am him. Listen; you're not going to like this, mainly because you're so busy, and also because you're not really used to handling this kind of case," The Chief said.

Jenny had a bad feeling about it all.

"What kind of case is it?" She asked in a displeased tone.

"Yes, well, we've been getting rumors of kidnappings…...please try to calm down," The Chief said responding to a growl from Jenny.

Jenny then yelled "Why do you need me for this? I thought this was your line of work."

Listening to the conversation, Ms. Wakeman was also angered by this, but she didn't say anything.

"This is our line of work, but we really do need you this time. Most of our police force is handling a robbery in the next town over. We are short on staff as it is, and we just found a great lead on the kidnapper. We figure that if we asked for your help, we could kill two birds at one time. The Mavericks don't seem to be attacking right now anyway. I know you don't like doing the dirty work, but it has to be done by somebody," The Chief explained.

"Fine; I'll get this over with then. Send me the mission parameters," Jenny said irritated.

"Okay; sending now," The Chief said.

A moment later, Jenny's eyes widened angrily, and then she said "When you said dirty work, I didn't know you meant this."

"You really haven't been called for this kind of thing before, have you?" The Chief asked concerned.

"No, I haven't" Jenny answered.

"I knew you already had enough on your mind as it is. That's why I voted against calling you for this case. You're not obligated to do this, but I hope you won't reconsider," The Chief said.

With a disgusted look on her voice, Jenny said angrily "A lot on my mind is an understatement. Fine. I'll do this."

"Thank you, and please try to keep a cool head. I understand that this is a very sensitive matter," The Chief said.

"I will. Jenny out," Jenny said as she cut off her communicator and picked up speed.

She was almost at her destination, about three minutes later, when she detected Misty's presence.

When Misty slowed down beside Jenny, Jenny said "You've gotten a lot faster at flying."

"I trained extra hard for our duel that's never gonna happen. By the way, you don't need to explain to me what this crime scene is about. I already know; makes me sick to my stomach. I'm here to help in case you can't keep your cool," Misty explained.

Jenny slammed her right fist into her left, and then said "I hope this ends quickly or I might need a liquid nitrogen grenade to the side of my head to keep me cool."

"Looks like this is the place. They always like to hide in old abandoned buildings like this, don't they?" Misty asked they hovered above the building.

Jenny headed towards the window to the top floor. Misty followed her lead as they used stealth to enter through the windows without making a sound. Jenny transformed her right index finger into a small laser gun as they quickly made their way through the building. Hey checked each room signaling each other along the way down each floor. They made it to the bottom floor finding nothing. They didn't give a sigh of relief as they search the bottom floor thoroughly. A minute later, Misty discovered a door under a rug leading to a basement. Jenny opened the door very slowly and started heading down the steps. Misty followed behind her.

Jenny just then knew how cops must feel when they handle such cases. She's not used to sneaking around. The suspense hung in the air like a dead-weight.

There were a surprising amount of stairs heading underground. When they reached the bottom, they both took a second to look back up the stairs and counted roughly one hundred and forty steps. They looked back at their path and noticed a long hallway that looked old and dirty. Very little light was coming from a torch on the side of the brick wall. Knowing that there was light coming from a flame let them both know that someone was down there.

They both inched their way down the hall knowing that there could be a trap waiting for them. That's when Jenny knew that this was going to be complicated. She signaled to Misty that the door at the end was preventing her from scanning through it. Once Misty understood, she was surprised. They then readied themselves for the worst.

When they reached the door, they took a moment to prepare themselves, and then they took action. Jenny pushed the door open pointing her laser finger in case a gun was pointed at her. To their surprise, it was pitch dark in the room and dead quiet.

Jenny felt around to try and find a light switch, but found nothing.

"_Come to think of it, there wasn't even a power line connected to this house_," She thought to herself.

Just then, she activated her night vision and began inspecting the room. She noticed that the room was mostly empty besides some old furniture and some old clothes on a pile. Then she noticed the door on the other end of the room. She grabbed Misty's hand and guided her through the room to the other door. Jenny then detached one of her finger and grew another one. It transformed into a small flashlight with a button on it. She handed it to Misty.

Jenny whispered directly into Misty's ear saying "Only use it if you have to."

"Of course," Misty whispered in response.

Jenny then slowly opened the next door and they discovered a large room with lit torches and a large statue of what looked similar to one of the United States' founding fathers posing as if for a photo portrait, but they could tell it was made way before cameras were invented. Jenny then deactivated her night vision.

There were also two dark hallways at the other end of the room. The dim light didn't help the situation. Eerie was definitely the word to describe the atmosphere of the room. They suddenly caught a glimpse of something in the hallway to the left, but just barely. It could only be seen when the flames of the torch closest to it flickered the right way. They waited until they saw it again, and that's when they noticed that this thing was actually a man. They barely noticed a grin before they heard his footstep running away from them.

They began frantically chasing after the man. Whoever this guy was, he could run really fast. They couldn't see him in the dark. By the time Jenny activated her night vision, and Misty turned on the flashlight, the man was nowhere to be seen. That's when they also noticed a large door at the end of the hallway. They figured he must've gone through the door. The charged forward and pushed the door open and prepared for battle.

The light in the room turned on suddenly and they were shocked to see about a hundred men in a large room with guns pointed straight at them. They weren't ordinary guns either. They were powerful guns, like the military usually have.

"Looks like you made it. You also brought a friend with you. We know who you are…Misty. If you transform, we will kill XJ9 where she stands. Enough hits from these illegal weapons will rip her to shreds," One of the men said.

They all started laughing when they saw the looks on their faces.

The man who led them into the room finally showed his face.

He then said "I'm sure you have no doubt discovered that communication with the outside world is impossible down here so far underground. The lead in the walls and doors also makes it just that much better.

"What did you do with those children you kidnapped?" Jenny asked angrily.

"Ah yes; the kids. You came here because you got wind of our human trafficking operation. Selling kidnapped kids to rich buyers as servants is actually quite easy to get away with when most of these kids are homeless to begin with. This society doesn't seem to think a homeless person ending up missing is very newsworthy. Aw; are you mad that a lot of those kids are used a sex slaves?" The man asked while grinning.

What kind of sick monsters are you people?" Misty asked angrily.

"Why don't you ask your society that question? You probably haven't the slightest clue what I mean, do you? Your mom didn't like talking to you about these kinds of things, did she?" The man asked.

"What the fuck are you talking about? What reason could you have to blame this society for?" Jenny yelled.

"You think most of us just woke up in their beds one day and said 'Hey! You know what? I want to do unspeakable things with my life,' don't you? That may be true for some of us, but not for most of us. Misty; you're used to surviving on the bare minimum, so you should have a better idea of what I'm about to say. You know those stories about pirates, or the bandits robbing people in the woods, or maybe the more familiar contemporary version: the gang of punks robbing a corner store or a bank if they think they can? Do you know why they do what they do? Believe it or not, it's usually the result of a huge unemployment problem. That's right, dammit! Then there's those among us who are old veterans, who when there were jobs available, we didn't get hired because we didn't fit in with your society's ridiculous standards. What the hell were we supposed to do? Starve? It's hard to be selfless, and willing to uphold moral standards on an empty stomach. Isn't that what you were trying to get little Jenny here to understand that day, Misty?" The man asked.

"I admit that I am guilty of that kind of logic, but the kind of work you're doing is just sick," Misty yelled.

"Sick? You mean more sick than slamming a bus full of children into a hospital full of sick people?" Another man asked.

"I don't get why you were able to ambush us the way you did," Jenny said.

"Simple really. A certain Maverick named Sting Chameleon came up with this plan to lure you here. Your eyes tell me you've heard of him. Why would we help them? Well, we know that they plan to kill us off soon, but we decided to accept our payment for this job because we wanted to live out our final days with a large sum of cash in our pockets, and we thought we'd have some fun with both of you as our captives. I wouldn't do anything reckless if I were you, Misty. You wouldn't want your dear old friend to die right in front of your eyes, now would you?" The man from before asked.

"I can imagine the kind of 'fun' you're talking about," Jenny said.

"Well yes, of course. Believe it or not, most of us aren't into kids like that, and a lot of us haven't had a good time in a while. You can't imagine many women would like us knowing our lifestyle. Oh yes, and don't think about running away either, Misty. We'll destroy her if you do that as well."

"You really are some sick mother fuckers. I don't care if life hasn't been friendly to you. There is no excuse for your behavior. That's what I learned," Misty yelled.

"We even have a special treat for you, Misty," The man said.

Suddenly, Misty froze when the barrel of a gun touched the back of her head. She was surprised any of those men were skillful enough to sneak up behind her like that.

"You'll die if you try to change. Sting Chameleon did his research on you, and he told us that it takes you a total of 0.85 seconds to transform into mist. That gun has been programmed to fire immediately the moment it notices that you're trying to transform or if you make any attempts to attack, which is really any sudden movements, but I wouldn't chance it if I were you. Damn those guys are resourceful," The man said followed by a laugh from a lot of the men including the guy behind Misty.

The guy behind her slowly wrapped his left arm around Misty and held the gun to the side of her head with his right arm. She tensed up when she felt his hand squeeze her right breast.

Jenny didn't need to turn to look at Misty to know what happened.

Jenny then said with a growl "You bastard!"

With a frightened and furious tone, Misty said to the man restraining her "I'm going to kill you. I hope you know that. You better hope you never make a mistake."

He sniffed her hair and then spoke into her ear saying "You really haven't been listening, have you, dumb bitch? We're already dead men as it is. Threatening us won't do you any good. That one little victory your friends had on the news only bought us a little time. We all know you don't have what it takes to win this war."

The man from before then said "Will you look at the time. We need to go now before their friends come looking for them. Now Jenny, remove any communication devices you have now, or Misty dies."

Jenny reluctantly did as she was ordered to. Her laser finger returned to its normal state as well. The man from before took them away from her and they all guided Misty and Jenny into the back of a large transfer truck a few rooms away. The man destroyed all of the communication devices along the way. They also took the time to remove any weapons Misty had on her. It looked so ordinary, that chances are, no one would think it looked suspicious. Jenny did realize that the inside of the rear of the truck was lined with lead and other signal blocking materials. Jenny was pushed to the rear while many guns were pointed in her direction, and the man that restrained Misty had her sitting in his lap. She was feeling quite uncomfortable for reasons left up to the imagination.

As the truck drove down the road, Jenny noticed how well every one the men kept their gaze and their aim on her.

"So, what about me? You know I'm not equipped in the way human girls are. What 'fun' could you possibly have with me?" Jenny asked.

"Funny you should ask. We can think of something. We 'humans' have the ability to improvise. And come to think of it, you got plenty of neat little trinkets and weapons on you too. Get rid of em'; now!" One of the men ordered.

"Fuck!" Jenny growled.

As she started removing her weapons, another man said "You shoulda kept your mouth shut. But, then again, one of us would've thought of it sooner or later."

It was embarrassing to say the least. It felt as though she were in a peep show. The most embarrassing part was that she was being beaten so easily by a small group of humans.

"Even if you think you are dead men already, you still won't get away with this. One of you is bound to make a mistake, sooner or later," Jenny said angrily.

"A lot of good that'll do you without any weapons," One man pointed out.

"I was referring to Misty. She much more trained at close range combat than I am. She'll find a way," Jenny explained.

When Jenny finished removing her weapons, one of the men said "Now kick them over to us."

When she did, another man said "It's funny how all those villains you fought didn't think up a plan like this. A lackey thought this up. It wasn't even Sigma who thought it up."

Misty's eyes began watering, and then she said "Jenny. They need you to help them fight. Leave me here."

"That's not going to happen, Misty. I won't leave you behind. Besides, it's no good anyway. There's no doubt Mavericks know where we are and are following our trail. I don't have my weapons, so I'm mostly defenseless," Jenny explained.

Misty didn't like the sound of that.

"So, she is smart. I always thought of her as dumb California beach blonde or something," Another man commented.

Some of the men laughed at that comment, and Jenny growled in anger.

About ten minutes later, the truck finally stopped. Everyone exited the truck and entered another underground hallway. They traveled on foot for about eight minutes until they reached the room at the end.

When they entered the room, Misty and Jenny finally saw what they were looking for, though they wish they hadn't. There were cages against the walls, and some of them had children of different ages in them. Mist and Jenny both had a very concerned and distressed look on their faces.

One of the children recognized Jenny and yelled "Hey! Let Jenny go. She never hurt you."

One of the men kicked the cage and yelled "Shut the fuck up!"

Another child then yelled "I'm glad she got trapped here. We've been down here for months and she never even noticed us. That robot doesn't care about us."

Jenny then said with a trembling voice "I swear; I didn't know. I didn't know any of you were here."

By the time she finished her sentence, the door shut behind the crowd of people escorting her. She turned her attention to a large desk at the other end of the room, and then the man sitting in the chair.

The man looked Jenny directly in the eyes and asked "So, how does it feel to finally feel so helpless? How does it feel to know that you've finally lost?"

"It feels fucking great! What the fuck do you think it feels like, you bastard?" Jenny yelled angrily.

The man grinned and then said "You know; if you weren't so new to this, I would've had to discipline you for insulting me. So as a fair warning, you might want to learn how to control your tongue, or you might lose it."

He stood up and walked over to Jenny and pushed her chin up a little to get a good look at her face. The man stood a surprising seven feet, two inches in height. Jenny stared directly into his eyes with a look of disgust.

"The famous global response unit, captured by my men. A dirty little trick, but a necessary one. You've gotten way too used to all those epic one on one battles with those mega-villains. You have yet to deal with people like us. Humans aren't strong enough to stand alone like you. That's why armies exist. Vexus had the right idea in mind with the exception of fighting dirty like humans usually have to," The man explained.

"You won't get away with this, you mother fucker," Jenny growled.

The man grinned again and said "Show her how we deal with insubordination."

He then signaled Jenny to look to her left. When she did, she saw a man jab Misty in her stomach with the butt of an assault rifle. The gun designed for her was still pointed at the back of her head.

After wincing in pain and coughing a couple of times, Jenny asked "Are you okay, Misty?"

Misty then strained out "I'm fine."

"Good job! You remembered not to make a sudden movement. You'd be dead right now if you had. You see, Ms. Wakeman, you really are powerless right now. Is that reality becoming apparent to you, or do we have to illustrate that truth to you even further? If we do, your friend's life here could be very painful for her," The man said.

All Jenny could do was cry at that point, and she did.

"I think she gets the point. Have Misty put into that container with that gun mounted behind her head, and have Jenny contained in the same room," The man ordered.

* * *

About an hour later, the man came walking into the room. Both Jenny and Misty were restrained. He walked over to Misty first and started running his fingers through her hair.

A few seconds later, he said "You are smart, Jenny. You finally figured it out. I would've hurt her again if you said the wrong thing. You know what though? I'm wondering if I should just kill Misty now and then sell your parts to the highest bidder."

Jenny then desperately said "Please no. Please don't do that her. I'm begging you."

"The longer you keep up that kind of attitude, the longer she lives. Now, what do you say when someone shows you kindness?" The man asked.

"Thank you," Jenny answered reluctantly.

"That's better. Now, if I were you, Jenny, I wouldn't speak during this next event," The man suggested as he turned his gaze to Misty.

Misty looked up at with a look as if she expected what was to happen, and she asked him "What event?"

"Keep in mind that there are also many unmanned guns pointed at Jenny. If you try anything, she will die. So, just keep still," The man ordered.

Jenny did as she was told, even fearing the worst. The man slowly began ripping Misty's shirt open from her neck down. Misty wanted to kill him so badly, but was not in a position to do so. She remained still and stared at him with rage in her eyes.

When he managed to remove her shirt, he tossed it to the side and began fondling her breasts. Misty then closed her eyes shut tight as tears began rolling down her face. Jenny watched in horror knowing that there was nothing she could do.

"Reality is a bitch; aint it? You came all this way to see a friend for this. You should've stayed where you were," The man mocked.

He then proceeded to removing her pants. When he finished, he began rubbing on her thighs, both inner and outer.

"It's not like you're in a position to say anything, Jenny, but isn't this usually where the hero in the movie asks why I'm doing this? That is the point. This aint a movie. In real life…you've gotta be kidding me," The man said as he looked over at the door to the room that just opened.

Both Jenny and Misty looked over to see a familiar face.

"You're that girl. How did you find this place?" The man yelled nervously.

"My name is Grace. I used my new…senses to track their whereabouts. It was…wise of you use that truck to…block Jenny's communication, but that didn't keep me…from finding them. It's the end of the…road for you," Grace replied angrily.

"Wait, why haven't my men activated the guns to kill them yet. Deactivated, but how?" He asked nervously.

Zero deactivated the…computer system after we took care…of your men. Too bad you connected those…guns pointed at them to…the power supply. Now she's free" Grace explained.

Misty then changed into her mist form and picked up her clothes. She then returned to her normal form fully dressed and kicked the man in the side of his head knocking him out.

"The only reason I didn't kill him was because he didn't get very far. When he wakes up, I intend to make sure he knows that if he ever tries that again, I won't be showing him any mercy," Misty growled.

Suddenly, they both looked at Jenny who was now crying heavily. Misty walked over to Jenny and helped her out of her restraints. When she finished, she hugged Jenny who was still crying.

A moment later, Jenny said "I couldn't…do anything. I'm sorry. I'm so…sorry. I never…felt so…helpless…before."

Jenny continued crying while Misty rubbed her back.

"It's okay. I know you couldn't help me. I'm not mad at you," Misty assured her.

Just then, Zero came rushing in through the door.

"Jenny, your sisters are outside right now making sure those guys don't escape. They're worried to death about you. The police are on their way as well. We also recovered your weapons. I gotta go, but will you all be okay here without me?" Zero asked.

Grace nodded her head, and then Misty answered "Yeah. Sure,"

Zero turned around and ran out of the room. Grace walked over to the man and then dragged him out of the room.


	34. Chapter 34

The fact that Jenny was captured by those men was not revealed to the public. If it had, the people's moral would likely have dropped a few vital points. The fact that Misty had returned was also not revealed to the public yet. The Maverick Hunters knew how Sigma thinks, so it was no wonder he didn't reveal those bits of information to the public. They knew that it wasn't the peoples' moral that he was trying to crush any more than it already had. He was trying to crush Jenny's moral. Misty just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

They also figured there was no possible way for them to know of Misty's return, so they would've had to have developed a weapon designed for her, just in case she happened to be there. If that was the case, there had to be more weapons designed for everyone else. The surprising part was that the only opponent specific weapons found were only designed for Jenny and possibly any of her sisters, Melody, Vexus, Sheldon (Silver Shell or not), and Misty's. To add insult to injury, their names were written on the weapons to be purposefully obvious.

Ms. Wakeman decided to spend time alone with her daughters in the computer lab. Jenny was still experiencing the effects of that traumatizing event.

"That had to be the most dirty, rotten, and disgraceful trick any villain has ever pulled. Taking advantage of the desires of twisted men; Sigma needs to be taken down soon," Ms. Wakeman said angrily.

"I can't wait to get my hands on him. That sick bastard will pay for what he did to Jenny," XJ7 growled.

"Mom. I think you kept me from this kind of thing on purpose. Is that true?" Jenny asked in a sad tone.

The room went silent for a moment because of her abrupt and uncomfortably straightforward question.

Jenny continued by saying "You did. I can tell by your silence. Until now…I've been seeing my job through the lens of a comic book superhero. Smytus and Krackus did terrible things, but you see those kinds of things happen in comics all the time, but not this. You put all this hype in my head about me being the one that handles the big jobs, and that those other jobs are somehow beneath me. I believed that. I thought everyone just had a different role to play. Before you say anything…I thank you for just trying to protect me. But because of that, I was totally unprepared to deal with them. That also put Misty in danger. I never thought that a group of non-military guys could defeat me so easily. I never once imagined such a scenario in my mind. I've been silent most of the time since I've returned because I've been forced to reevaluate things I thought I knew to try and make sense out of what happened tonight. Please just listen to what I have to say. First, I remember one of those guys saying 'This society doesn't seem to think a homeless person ending up missing is very newsworthy.' I was thinking 'what the hell is that supposed to mean?' I thought about it, and suddenly the world around me became more grotesque. 'Are homeless people really that ignored and forgotten?' I wondered. Come to think of it, I don't remember the last time I remember seeing a news broadcast about a homeless person winning an award or even so much as one of their names being mentioned. 'Does society even care that they exist?' I wondered. I guess they don't. That same man shortly afterwards said these exact words…"

Her vocal processor changed to match the sound of that man's voice, and then Jenny said "You think most of us just woke up in their beds one day and said 'Hey! You know what? I want to do unspeakable things with my life,' don't you? That may be true for some of us, but not for most of us. Misty; you're used to surviving on the bare minimum, so you should have a better idea of what I'm about to say. You know those stories about pirates, or the bandits robbing people in the woods, or maybe the more familiar contemporary version: the gang of punks robbing a corner store or a bank if they think they can? Do you know why they do what they do? Believe it or not, it's usually the result of a huge unemployment problem. That's right, dammit! Then there's those among us who are old veterans, who when there were jobs available, we didn't get hired because we didn't fit in with your society's ridiculous standards. What the hell were we supposed to do? Starve? It's hard to be selfless, and willing to uphold moral standards on an empty stomach. Isn't that what you were trying to get little Jenny here to understand that day, Misty?"

Jenny's voice then returned to normal, and then she continued saying "The severity of the situation force me to feel it necessary to record verbatim everything those men said, so I did. Can anyone explain that dumb ass logic to me? A group of people try to fit in, but are too different by society's 'unwritten' standards to make the cut. So what we're dealing with here, is that a person can have a strong drive and incredible work ethic, but if he comes off as a little strange to the employer, he won't get hired? What a load of shit. That means that this guy…or girl is basically destined to be rejected by everybody, right? Wait, XJ5! I'm not done yet. Then that same guy goes and does something drastic in order to eat out of desperation in case the charity organizations aren't able to feed them. Then we have to punish him for trying to survive because his method was against the law. That is unacceptably horrible by my standards. So this society fucks up one generally well meaning man's life, he retaliates, and then it causes a ripple effect that hurts other people along the way. I'm not excusing them for hurting those kids, but what should we expect from a desperate person. Those guys who had money and only did it just because they thought they could are completely indefensible. Those guys knew the Mavericks were going to try to kill them soon and said that they were just trying to live life to the fullest until the end. They knew what they were doing. I thought they might have been ignorant of the situation, but I see they're not. Then there was that one child that said that I should be captured because I never did anything to help her. I remember telling her that I didn't know she was there. I was telling the truth though. I didn't know about her, but I did know about the thousands of children that fall victim to these crimes regularly. They talk about these things on the news, but I never really paid any real attention to it other than 'isn't that just despicable?' It's as if…somewhere deep down…I didn't really believe it. Wars are a great big part of our world's history, but until I actually experienced it, I kind of pretended as though it wasn't real. It's not real? Think about that. We know it is, but unless it actually happens in our own back yard, it's not real. These kidnapped kids think their situation is real, and so do the hungry and starving. So then, how do so many of us become so ignorant of these things? Look at that TV right there. I know it's a computer monitor, but try to bear with me. I think that might be a big part of our problem, right there. I understand those in the past that simply chose not to do anything about another nation's plight because of their limitations, but this is a new age altogether. This is a nation full of people who have massive amounts of resources to help people who need it, but there are still people of all ages starving in Africa by the millions. We live like fucking kings compared to those people. But we complain about the littlest things. Here's where the TV comes in. Do any of you ever question what you're seeing on the screen? Most likely not. It is just presentation value after all, right? That's the problem. There are kids who are basically raised by their TVs instead of their parents because the parents claim not to have enough time or energy to raise them properly. Those kids sit in front of the TV all day never really questioning the shit they see. I admit that television is a great entertainment tool, but if you really think about it, was the human brain meant to receive that much stimulus? It's not the information I'm worried about. Education is great stimulus. It's the constant barrage of extreme situations that pour from the screen like a rushing river directly into our minds that I'm worried about. If you notice, even the tiniest little details are often so unnecessarily extreme. It's fun to watch, I admit, but think of the consequences for a moment. We all have the tendency to reference repetitive things as short term memory. How often do African tribal people see big ass explosions? Almost never, and if it did happen, they would remember it for the rest of their lives. We see them on TV all the time. Should a death causing explosion ever become monotonous or boring to us? We should be screaming and running for our lives when we see one. TV has created a phenomenon that has desensitized large populations full of people from reacting to extreme negative situations in the way that they should. Last time I checked, starving children in Africa is not a damned late night reality show. It's real life. What do we do about it? Most of us do nothing and wait for somebody else to handle it. That way, it won't have to be real to us. Since when did tragedy become mundane in our minds? I get involved in tragedy often, but never those kinds of situations. I know TV isn't responsible for all of our desensitization, but I feel like it's a great part of it. And yes, X, I know you've been standing by the door listening to us the whole time. I know the pattern of your footsteps. Since you heard so much, you might as well add those two cents that you've been dying to get off your chest."

Surprised, everyone else in the room looked at the door as X walked in and closed the door behind himself.

"Eavesdropping is rude by the way," Jenny added.

"Sorry about that. I couldn't help but become glued to what you were saying," X explained.

"That's why I stopped watching TV a long time ago. I knew what you explained subconsciously, but I never was able to explain it in words the way you just did," Ms. Wakeman said.

"So now you're starting to see some of the reasons why I'm so pissed off and sad all the time. My issue with most people as that they are corrupt to the core, and they hardly genuinely care about anybody who isn't in their little circle or family. Yes, we care, but we're gonna wait around until someone else does the dirty work. We have our own lives to take care of after all. They say they care, but then turn around and say and do hateful things to those they feel inconvenienced them somehow. This kind of attitude results in things like those jobless people who become criminals out of necessity. Excluding people who aren't like them. People are constantly separating themselves from others they deem different from themselves because they didn't factor in tolerance into their lives. Why is reality like this, anyway? Can anyone answer that fairly, I wonder?" X asked.

"Fairly is the issue. Someone told me once, a long time ago, that Satan rules this world. Interesting he should say that. I didn't think he made any sense at the time, but knowing what I know now, this world definitely seems evil enough. Every day we have to put up with constant circumstantial bullshit, double standards, and people always trying to get the biggest piece of the pie even at the expense of someone else's life if necessary," Jenny explained.

Staring into the distance wide-eyed, XJ4 said "Man, this is so deep. It's right in front of us every day, and we hardly even recognize it because we're so used to it. So Jenny, you've been sitting on these kinds of thoughts for a while now, haven't you?"

"Exactly. I'm only now able to piece them together as well as I have. Why should life have to be this way, anyway? Why is it like this? In fact, why is anything the way it is, now that we're on the subject? Are we under some kind of curse?" Jenny asked.

"Maybe," XJ8 answered in a tone indicating that she was also pondering the question.

"A curse, huh? Could be? Who knows? This world often seems as bad as the effects of a curse. A big curse…like the mother of all curses. Maybe I'm taking it too far," Ms. Wakeman said.

"Maybe…" Jenny added while thinking about it intensely.

* * *

Later on that night, Jenny had another dream. She found herself walking around looking at a city full of people doing terrible things. It was broad daylight. She was seeing people do things that she wished she had never witnessed, but for a reason she could not understand, she felt as though she were a part of it all. She felt as though she were just as guilty.

Regardless of how much she tried to rationalize it, she could not feel any less guilty. The feeling was maddening.

She eventually yelled "This is a lie! I'm not like you!"

Surprisingly, everyone stopped what they were doing and looked directly at her in response. Fear began to overwhelm her.

"Why are you people staring at me?" She yelled.

A small child tapped her leg a few times, and when she looked down at the child, she noticed how clean and groomed the child appeared as opposed to everyone else. She also noticed that there were no other children among the crowd.

She looked back down at the child and asked "What do you want from me, little girl?"

The child smiled and pointed in the direction of the crowd. When she looked in that direction, the crowd was suddenly gone, and she was no longer in a city. She saw a vast open area of the most beautiful nature she had ever laid eyes on. She felt drawn into it but also offended by its existence somehow. But why would she feel offended? Isn't it beautiful?

She walked for a while exploring the large area until she saw people in the distance. As she got closer to those people, she realized that they were all children. She saw no parents around, but the children seemed fine as they were.

She then looked back in the direction of the child whom she felt walking beside her the entire time and asked "I'm curious. How old are you anyway?"

The child then answered "I'll soon be eight years old."

* * *

Jenny suddenly opened her eyes at the sound of Sheldon knocking at the door to the room she was sleeping in.

Sheldon opened the door, and when he saw Jenny's expression, he asked "Are you still shaken by what happened tonight?"

"That's…not…that's not what I'm thinking about. My dream…just now…I don't know what to make of it," Jenny said as she sat up and began staring into the distance.

Sheldon sat down beside Jenny, and then asked "It's not about something dangerous, is it?"

Jenny looked at Sheldon and replied "Huh? I don't…wait; no, I'm not thinking about suicide again if that's what you're thinking. It's blurry…but I remember seeing people going crazy, then a little girl, then a large open field with children playing happily. I asked the girl how old she was, and when she told me, I woke up with this weird feeling when you knocked. It's like…it's like a feeling of…awareness…of something…or someone maybe…trying to get me to understand something. The feeling is gone now, but it was real. It was so real. For a moment, that feeling stood out more to me than everything that happened tonight. Most of dreams that I can remember have been so violent, but this one…man, I don't even know what I'm trying to say. Do you have any insight on this?"

"Insight? I'm not really sure what to say about it. I've never been any good at trying to interpret dreams. I feel like it was a fluke when I figured out the reason behind your violent dreams. You would probably be better off asking your aunt about that," Sheldon suggested.

Jenny sighed and said "I'll do that later. She'll probably give me some out-of-this-world explanation about something most people don't take seriously."

Sheldon laughed a little and said "Yeah; I guess you're right. There is, however one thing to keep in mind. The last time you had a crazy dream that stood out this much to you, something about it came to pass, and the time before that."

"I'll keep that in mind. The first time it happened, I almost died. The second time it happened, the space-time continuum distorted and dropped a bunch of total strangers that technically shouldn't exist in our laps. The third…" Jenny said but stopped suddenly.

"I don't like the sound of that," Sheldon said concerned.

"If I hid this from you, the outcome would probably be bad. I had another dream the same night that I had the dream about Signas. I haven't thought about it much since, but in that dream, I was consumed by a fiery man. I think it was a man. It was too blurry to make out. When I woke up from it though, I didn't feel as afraid as I did with the first two dreams," Jenny explained.

"Whatever happens, I'll be there to protect you from it. I'll try my best, at least," Sheldon said while staring her directly in the eyes.

Jenny leaned in and kissed him on the lips, and then said "Thank you very much."

* * *

The following morning, Axl ran into Misty. She hadn't even noticed him until he came into view because she was looking down at the floor.

She looked up at him and said "You surprised me."

"Oh yeah, you're name is…Misty. I wanna say what you've heard already. I feel terrible about what happened to you last night."

Misty sighed and said "Don't worry about it. You couldn't have known it was going to happen."

I wouldn't mind smacking those guys around some to teach them a lesson. Talk about some losers. If they wanted a date so bad, they should've just asked. Then again, I doubt a classy lady like you would wanna date a bunch of weirdoes like them," Axl said.

Misty was surprised at how confident and straightforward his statement was.

She laughed a little and asked "You wouldn't be trying to hit on me, would you?"

"I wouldn't call it that. I'm really just complimenting you, and I feel like I'd be disappointed if you ended up with a guy like one of them. I get the part about doing something rash in order to put food on the table, but selling kids and raping people is low," Axl replied.

"Believe it or not; I've seen lower. Either way, I definitely have a personal reason to fight Sigma. I also want to find that Sting Chameleon guy that thought up that fucked up plan," Misty said.

"That is an issue. I wonder why Sting Chameleon would want to do something that dirty. I never met him personally, but from what I've heard, he doesn't seem like the type to stoop to that level," Axl added.

"Maybe they got tired of losing. Maybe they're ready to do anything to win, regardless of how degrading their methods are," Misty guessed.

"That seems like the likely explanation. Anyway, I gotta get going, but if you need me for anything, just call for me," Axl said as he began walking past her.

"Okay. Thanks for trying to cheer me up by the way," Misty said.

"No problem," Axl replied.


	35. Chapter 35

The issue had been bugging Brad ever since he started staying at the base. More accurately, it had been bugging him ever since he heard about Grace. After seeing her transformation, he was reminded of a few blurry flashes of memories that he still had trouble piecing together. He knew that sooner or later, his memories were going to resurface.

He also realized that his mom was acting a little stranger than usual knowing that Grace was around, though he didn't think it a good idea to actually confront her about it. Speaking of which, he happened to be looking for his mom to ask her a question on a totally different subject.

When he found her, she was in a room with a number of other people sitting in it, and to his disappointment and sense of bad luck, Grace was also in the room as well. The people in the room were looking through a window into a room where military battle robots were being tested. Jenny volunteered to test the efficiency of the robots on the floor in person.

He walked over to his mom and tapped her on the shoulder.

When she responded, he asked "Hey mom! Do you remember the time of that meeting that's supposed to happen later today?"

She answered saying "It's at 7:30 pm, dear."

"Thanks. You know, I'm surprised Tuck isn't here to see these robots in action," Brad commented.

"I really don't know where he is. He's really hard to find sometimes, that boy," His mom said.

"Oh, you're little brother? I saw him about thirty minutes ago talking to XJ4," one of the Maverick Hunters verified.

"I wonder what he'd have to talk to her about. Maybe he's reached that age," Brad commented with a grin.

His mom then grinned and said "Oh, stop it, Bradley. What would XJ4 see in him anyway? He's only going on eleven years old."

The conversation made some of the others in the room laugh or giggle.

Melody then asked "That would be funny, wouldn't it? I seriously doubt it though."

A lab technician in a corner of the room spoke up saying "Funny you should mention something like that. My brother and I used to make jokes about what would happen if one of the XJs one day had a crush on a human and that human happened to be one of us. I used to tell him he was so wrong for commenting on the many uses of her extra arms."

Some of the people in the room started laughing again at that last comment.

XJ8 spoke up saying "I would say that you are terrible for saying that if were not for the comments I made about the same subject."

XJ5 laughed and then said "What about XJ6's third leg?"

After another session of room-wide laughter, XJ7 then said "I guess we must be one of the biggest topics of conversation on everybody's mouths."

A soldier then said "You don't even know the half of it, XJ7."

A moment later, Grace looked over at Brad's mom and then Angel said "I can't help but get the feeling you're curious about me. It seems to me you've had this on your mind for a while now; so do tell,"

With a surprised look on her face, she paused for a moment in hesitation. The room went silent as all eyes besides those were busy were now on them.

"You're not a slick as you might think. You keep looking at me out of the corner of your eyes. You might think I can't see that, but I saw it," Angel said.

"You…you just remind me of someone…that's all," Brad's mom replied nervously.

"You…are a terrible liar. I didn't wanna do this, but since you're so reluctant to share with the rest of the class, I also happened to know that your son, Bradley has also been giving me similar looks for a while too: about four months or so now to be more precise. I somehow don't think you two just have an unusually curious nature. I know everyone else around here would like to know a little more about me, but you almost seem to already know something about me, so please, share with the rest of us," Angel requested.

A moment later, Brad said nervously "Mom…"

She cut him off by saying "Just let me handle it. Okay Red Angel, you win. I have a question for both of you. Did either of you ever know a boy named Eugene Jefferson?"

Suddenly, Brad had a lot of latent memory come to the surface, but it was still blurry.

Both Grace and Angel reacted to that name the same way. Grace put her hand under her chin as though she was pondering something, and then Angel said "Eugene Jefferson. Eugene…Jefferson. Hmm…the name definitely rings a few old tarnished forgotten about bells. Maybe you can refresh our memories somehow."

Brad's mom clenched one of her fists tight, and then said "I didn't want to scare my son by talking about this. I definitely didn't want Tucker knowing about this at all. Bradley came home one day acting very strangely. He was only seven at the time. He seemed frightened of something. I didn't think it was serious until he kept getting worse by the day. I investigated the school to see what was going on. I thought he was just being bullied. It turns out that a boy named Eugene Jefferson would wander onto the campus daily and start talking to the kids about scary things that, from what the faculty could find out, were things that only an adult could come up with. Whatever he told my son, it scared the living shit out of him and gave him nightmares for a couple of months until some doctors convinced him these things weren't real. The only things I could dig up on that boy was that he was usually considered a strange and alienated child, and that he mentioned the name Harnell to my son a few times. Those doctors did a great job, but their treatment worked too well. He actually can't remember a few months of his life as a side-effect."

"Talk about out of the blue," one soldier commented.

"You're right about that. I really can't remember a few months of my life. I don't even remember the treatment. One of the only things I can remember that stands out to me is the mention of something about a secret society…and I believe they tried to create monsters or something," Brad explained.

A few seconds later, Angel replied "And here I was thinking all connections to our pasts were lost. So Brad, you've wanted to talk to us about this for this long. That name is too vague, even for me. I believe that boy might have been the son or a relative of one of the scientists working at the lab when I was made. I remember one angry guy getting fired, and that might be the guy that needs to be questioned…if he is the right guy. I hope he is still alive. I'd like to know the answers to some questions that have been bothering me for years now myself. Grace knows less than I do. As far as secret societies are concerned, there are plenty of those around the world that even your government knows about and even keeps that information away from their soldiers. That doesn't make you soldier guys feel very safe anymore, does it? Don't ask me about the names of those societies and what they do, because I don't really know those details. What does disturb me, though, is that your little story seems to imply that I might be one of those monsters. That doesn't really add up because I was created only to save Grace's life, not to be a weapon. These transformations aren't even part of the design. I made them up myself. Sorry I can't really help you with your son's problems. I just don't know enough."

"Well…that answers that. Thank you for being straightforward with me. I can tell you're also just another uninformed person connected to whatever happened back then. I couldn't ignore you knowing your last name was Harnell. Oh yes, and would you happened to know if Grace's grandfather is still alive?" Brad's mom asked.

"If he is still alive, he's hiding somewhere really damned secure. The public world hasn't so much as heard a peep out of him in over seven years. I'm sure some of you heard the stories of how he just seemed to mysteriously disappear. I know he's a lesser known scientist to the public, but he did make a name for himself. I'd like to know where he is myself," Angel answered.

"Man, I have top secret security clearance, and even I don't know anything about what happened to that guy. Our government doesn't even talk about him anymore," an army officer added.

"I asked mom about him too, and she doesn't know either. I thought she would be the one to know, but I know she's telling the truth. She didn't even know Grace existed until Jenny mentioned her. The only thing we really have going, I'd say, is that mom did say that she's heard of the name Harnell before she came into the picture. You could try asking her yourself, Grace," XJ5 suggested.

Grace then replied saying "I think…I'll do just…that."

"I don't mean anything by it, but I'm still not really used to knowing that there's two people in one body," another soldier said.

Grace grinned, and then said "I can't say I'm used to it yet either."

* * *

Despite the fact that Jenny wasn't as emotionally scarred by the recent event as Sigma would've hoped, he did still manage to cause quite a bit of damage. She assured everyone that she was not thinking of suicide again, but she did need a lot of personal space during her free time. Misty was in the same boat.

* * *

Grace did manage to finally get some time alone with Ms. Wakeman to talk.

They both sat across from each other at a small table. Ms. Wakeman was drinking some hot tea while Grace was drinking some iced coffee.

"You spent quite a lot of time trying to get an audience with me, and now you have it. What is it you wish to talk to me about?" Ms. Wakeman asked.

"I want to know…everything you…can tell me about my…grandfather," Grace answered.

"Straight to the point, I see. I have been trying to remember what I learned about him. I even sorted through many books, documents, and computer files I've collected over the years to figure this out, and I only managed to find very general information about him. I did find an old yellowed newspaper article about someone accusing Kingston of stealing your grandfather's work. I read it for the first time years ago, and even I thought the accusation was bogus at the time, now that I think back on it. It took me a long time to remember it, but I knew the right place to look for info when I started thinking about the words 'seal' and 'iceberg.' I do mean the animal when I say 'seal.' There's an old story about how some of the earliest nano-machine research was done in facility built inside of a cave. The cave was actually made of ice instead of rock, hence the 'iceberg.' The information I dug up said something about the men who built the facility inside that cave one day discovered a preserved dead seal inside of the wall of ice. At the end of the article, there's a list of names of the scientists working at the facility, and your grandfather's name was on that list. So I checked the internet for verification, and sure enough, I found nothing. Seems to me someone probably covered this information up. Beyond that, that's all I know. Wait, actually, you might want to look up something called 'Project NF51.' In that article, that project was mentioned, but it wasn't made to seem like a big deal. I'm sure by the determined look in your eyes that you intend to find what you're looking for, even if you end up having to do it all by yourself," Ms. Wakeman explained.

"Yes, but we do intend to wait until after the war, otherwise there might not be anything to look for afterwards if they win," Angel said.

"Now that I've told you that, there is one other matter I'd like to discuss with you, Grace. I've kept it to myself until now, but I didn't appreciate the way you tried to seriously hurt my daughter that day. You're probably thinking 'When did I do that?' It was when you tried to defend that Jason boy. Don't try that 'But I wasn't even strong enough to cause any damage back then' excuse. I read the event logs in Jenny's memory, and it revealed to me that you intentionally used excessive force. I know you were trying to defend him, and that's fine, but you knew what you were doing. It's not the technicalities that concern me; it's the principle. You went way out of your way to try to cause damage. The fact that she hit the ground as fast as she did tells the story by itself," Ms. Wakeman explained angrily as she stared at Grace directly in her eyes.

"You know what…you're right. I did…try to hurt her. You don't…seem to realize how…much she makes me angry sometimes. Not only that, but I also saw no…real value in having robots around…at that time anyway. I find myself hypocritical…changing my mind because I…found out that I basically am…one. The thoughts going…through my mind at…the time were 'That…Wakeman lady needs to put a…leash on that wild animal.' Yes, I'm aware that dogs sometimes…save their masters. I'm also aware that…those same dogs sometimes…turn around and then kill their…masters. You know what's really messed up? Humans do the same thing. I don't see her…as a thing or animal anymore, but she still has some…personality issues that…I can't stand. But you know; maybe if you had seen…Jason's bloody face, you might have…thought otherwise," Grace explained angrily.

"The worst part is that I already knew that you would say something like that, and that I have to agree with you. I don't agree with the 'wild animal' part though. I did scold her about attacking that boy like that, but I did feel offended that he tried to get my daughter killed. In the end, I'm more angry at him than I am at you. I just felt it necessary to get my feelings about the situation across to you," Ms. Wakeman said.

Angel then said "I know you were talking to Grace, but I gotta apologize. I did play a part in trying to hurt her that day. I was angry because Grace was angry. My affiliation is with her. Based on my words, that ought to tell you that Grace was about to apologize as well before I cut her off. Don't look at me like that. I do feel a certain amount of genuine remorse for trying to hurt Jenny, but you gotta understand me. If it comes down to Grace or Jenny, I'm chosing Grace."

"You might want to keep that wild animal on a leash," Ms. Wakeman said with a half grin, half angry expression.

"I'll try. And Ms. Wakeman; I really…am sorry for what I…did. It was uncalled for," Grace replied.

Ms Wakeman sighed and said "I hope neither of you took me seriously. I'm just venting. My nerves are bad from how much I worry about my daughter's safety."

Angel then replied "I understand. I feel the same way about Grace. She's older than me, but I worry about her as though I were her mother."

"_That's interesting_," Ms. Wakeman thought to herself.

* * *

Later on that day, there was a news broadcast that took the world by surprise. Everyone was currently watching it, as it was being broadcasted live via illegal satellite hacking. People were seeing Maverick soldiers destroying a large Skyway Patrol command post. When the fighting was over, most of the Mavericks were seen retreating. Then there was the camera man; he started laughing like a maniac.

He turned the camera towards his face revealing that he was also a Maverick. Alia revealed that his name was Wheel Alligator.

He then yelled into the camera "It really feels good to be on TV. Too bad those Maverick Hunters are about a thousand miles from here so they can't stop us. Your days are numbered, humans. Once we defeat your so-called 'heroes;' next comes your militaries, and then you guys. You think you actually have a chance of winning. If you knew what we had in store for you, you'd reconsider fighting us and instead try to beg for mercy. Hey! Isn't it better to live as a slave than to die in a futile battle? If you do beg for your lives, master Sigma might let some of you live as our pets. If I were you, I'd take my chances and at least try to beg. If you don't, you'll definitely end up like all these lumps of bleeding flesh lying around here on the ground. Oh, and another thing. I know you people don't know what **really** happened a couple of nights ago. You know what I'm referring to. I'm talking about that little case Jenny had to cover your worthless cops' asses for. Too bad they found the footage because you would be in for a real treat, but I'll just tell you what happened. Jenny and Misty both; yes, that's right, Misty too, went into an old building looking for some kidnapped kids. I swear; you people treat your own kind like refuse. Anyway, they found the perpetrators, but it was an ambush set up just for them. They were stripped of their weapons and tied down with superhero-ending weaponry pointed right at them should they try anything stupid. I heard that Misty almost got raped right before those other bastards showed up to save the day. I even heard that Jenny was crying her little eyes out because she couldn't do shit about the situation. If she fell for an easy trap like that one; what makes you people think she has what it takes to beat us. She couldn't even beat a few measly humans with guns. Aw, are you about to cry XJ9? Are you desperately hoping that your people won't demand you personally give them an explanation?"

He took a moment out to laugh, and then he said "Yeah; I'd be embarrassed too. Down to business. We're calling you out, '**heroes**.' Any time you want to settle this, we are game. All your preparations won't count for shit. Come to think of it, we were wondering how long it was gonna take for you to attack us. Honestly, you should've mobilized when we first arrived here. You would've had a much better chance at beating us back then. Maybe Jenny is too busy passing herself around to all the Maverick Hunter guys, enjoying herself, while all you people out there are scared out of your minds. Actually, I wouldn't mind a shot at that Melody girl. I know what you people are thinking. Why would a pretty girl like that want anything to do with a big ugly ass alligator dude like me?"

He then laughed some more before destroying the camera.

Melody then turned her head to face the crowd, and while pointing her finger at the screen, she yelled "Okay, I officially hate that guy."

Jenny stood up and left the room with her eyes shut tight and a furious expression on her face. Sheldon went running after her, along with a few others.

"I don't get it. Why are they acting so wild and unrefined all of a sudden? A lot of them were running around and screaming like a biker gang, and Wheel Alligator has always been a loose cannon, but he's never seemed so crazy before," Alia said.

"It's deliberate. They're doing it because they wanna scare people into submission or panic. They probably wanna see the humans act recklessly out of fear to try to justify why they think humans are like animals," Zero explained.

"But they were acting like animals themselves just then. I get it now. Once they start getting their point across, they would all of a sudden start acting normal again," A soldier guessed.

The Maverick Hunter named Massimo answered "That about sums it up. That does seem to be the case, at least."

"They're just a bunch of jackasses, if you ask me. I plan to teach that lizard fucker a lesson for embarrassing me like that," Melody said angrily.

"Which brings to the big question: how much longer do we plan to wait around here?" The reploid nurse named Cinnamon asked.

"That's a difficult question to answer. Their president keeps saying that she doesn't think we're quite ready yet. A lot of their militaries are still making preparations," One of the Maverick Hunters answered.

"Since they're actually doing their jobs for once, they must be pulling out all the stops," a soldier commented.

He managed to get a few laughs out of the crowd with his comment.

* * *

Later on, Jenny sat in front of a computer with a webcam attached to it. She began recording herself: a speech she prepared.

With an angry look on her face, she said "I'm calling anyone who is willing to listen to what I have to say to hear me out: my address to the world. Before I give you the address, I want to say something. I was just made aware today that the information about what happened the other night to me was withheld from the general public. I admit that I did not want you to know, but I also did not think to try to hide it from you, for the thought had not crossed my mind. And please, try not to criticize me for my lack of skill regarding the wording of this speech. Now, it's time for the address. My fellow citizens; as it stands, and as you all are already aware; all out war is imminent. Earth's militaries are working around the clock to prepare to do battle with our enemy: The Mavericks, led by Sigma. I am also doing everything I can to prepare to defend the people with my life. I am also aware that many of you still question the loyalties of the Maverick Hunters. I have spent plenty time with them, and I have come to realize that they are sincere about helping us deal with the current issue. Our enemy is attempting to dismantle our resolve with the use of underhanded trickery. What they didn't seem to count on, was that most of us, including myself have spent the last five months strengthening our resolve. We've all experienced immense hardship since our dealings with Smytus and Krackus recently. Recovering from what they've done to our world, has given many of those whom would have never picked up a firearm, a strong will to fight. If we allow their taunts to shake us, we run the risk of losing everything we hold dear. I ask that none of you let that happen. I ask you also because, in case I or the Maverick Hunters do not live through this ordeal, it will be up to you to finish the job. Some of you may say that you aren't a part of the military. It is true…officially. Since so many of you decided to purchase firearms recently, you have, in a sense, militarized yourselves. With that said, you need to learn to treat your brothers and sisters in uniform as you would treat you each other. That is to say that the threat we face is so dangerous, that we will all need to pull together to defeat our enemy as though we are a single unit. In this time of crises, we cannot afford to dwell on our differences. You must stand and help one another. Soon, we will advance on our enemy, and if we work together, I am confident that we will win. I am Jennifer Wakeman, and I thank you all for listening. I have one more thing to say. I apologize to you all for nearly letting you down during the attack a few months ago. I'm understanding more and more every day just how hard it is to live in this world. I couldn't fathom your pain years ago, but I see it plainly now. It's a realization that drove me to attempt suicide. I'll probably never fully recover from that. Thank you to all those who believed in me then, and still believe in me now. I will try not to let everyone down this time either. Please…stay strong."


	36. Chapter 36

Jenny's address to the world wasn't too much different from an address the President would make, but the mere fact that it was directly from Jenny, unscripted, and straight from the heart, is what made the people's reaction so strong. An unprofessional presentation in all aspects; from the terrible picture quality to the obvious nervousness in Jenny's performance, but the people thought that made it all the better. It was becoming increasingly difficult to take the so-called 'professional' presentations of world leader very seriously anymore. There wasn't enough emotion in their speeches. They could easily see Jenny's emotions. A short speech, and not even a page in length, made Jenny's popularity rise a few points. She even made front page news.

While being the talk of the town, she also received plenty of positive comments from most of the others at the base. It had been four days since she recorded her speech.

During breakfast, as everyone was gathered in the cafeteria, leaning her chair back some, Jenny stared up at the ceiling lights thinking about various things while also listening to the many things that the others were talking about.

It wasn't long before she heard Tuck say "Hey everybody! Jenny for president!"

A lot of people started laughing at his comment, and a few seconds later, Jenny returned to her upright sitting position and laughed as well.

It was even funny enough to make Ms. Wakeman laugh.

"Hey little man! That was a good one," a soldier said followed by another laugh.

When Jenny finished laughing, she said "Wow, Tuck! I haven't had that good a laugh in months. You ever consider being a comedian?"

"I don't think that career choice is right for me. Now, that was a joke, but…in an odd little way, I was actually being somewhat serious," Tuck replied while smiling.

"Sorry, Tuck, but that's not a good career choice for me either. You know how many years I would have to study and struggle to make that happen? It was a funny thought though," Jenny replied.

The reploid named Marino spoke up saying "Judging by the public response to your speech, the people almost seem ready to vote you into office already. Don't take what I said seriously. It was an exaggeration."

"Now I know a United States President can only serve two terms, and the current President is already on her second, but if Jenny had the opportunity to run against her, can you imagine the competition?" a soldier asked.

"The first robot President. Yeah, you'd probably be on the receiving end of a few assassination attempts by your competitors; no bullshit. We all know what happened to the most famous Presidents. Boom; a bullet in the brain," another soldier commented.

"Gee, man. You definitely make a girl feel real safe," Jenny replied sarcastically.

Tuck then grinning and asked "Speaking of which, you guys in uniform wouldn't happen to know who…?"

Another soldier cut him off by replying "No, kid! Nobody knows who killed JFK…or why. I got an idea. Why don't you become one of those conspiracy theorists when you grow up?"

Still grinning, Tuck replied "I think I'll pass. On that subject though, you seemed real quick to stop me mid-sentence and real quick to mention conspiracy theorists when I brought up the subject of JFK. It's real convenient knowing the negative stigmas surrounding those people, aint it?"

"It's not like that information is really gonna help us right now, is it?" Ms. Wakeman asked.

"I know! I just thought I'd say something on the subject. Anyway, Jenny, what was it that made you decide to make that video?" Tuck asked.

"I was really just being spontaneous. I thought people could use some pep talk. I didn't really expect that good of a reaction out of everybody considering my apparent popularity," Jenny replied.

"And you even managed to get them to trust the Maverick Hunters a little more than before. I bet Sigma didn't like that very much," Wisteria added.

"I bet he didn't," Jenny said

"Expect retaliation. I'm confident he's not gonna let this one go overlooked," Angel said.

"Yeah, I know. But it's not like I'm not already on his A list," Jenny added.

* * *

It had been a little while since Jason had last seen Grace. He knew roughly where she was even though the exact location of the base is kept secret. As he lay in his bed, staring at a poster on the wall, he found himself unnerved about the fact that she had been gone for so long…

"_It really hasn't been that long. Why does it feel that way? Why am I even worried about her? She's not a member of my family. Jenny's been gone just as long, and I'm not worried about her at all. Jenny can take care of herself. She did fuck me up pretty bad that day. It's hard for me to be concerned about somebody that did that fuckin' shit to me. I hope she one day learns how this kind of pain feels. Those nerve attachments she had…she just simply took em' off after about a day's time. She doesn't know what it's like to have to live with pain for a long period of time_," He thought to himself.

His anger towards Jenny was still pretty strong. It would probably be a while before he would let that beating go. He suddenly remembered the first time he saw Grace, and how she added a certain level of mystery and a break-away from the usual mundane norm to the atmosphere in the cafeteria that day. To him, personality wise, most people seemed so unimpressive, so manufactured, as if they were massed produced from an assembly line. He rarely finds anyone interesting because he feels as though most people don't really think for themselves. Those he finds interesting are those who have decided that they refuse to sacrifice their originality for the sake of conformity. In this case, it's not that conformity is the real issue. It's what the people are conforming to that's the issue.

"_I don't even know how it got started. When did people start living and behaving the way they do today? I have a few ideas, but no solid answer. It…kinda seems…like, at some point, somebody thought that if everyone acted a certain way, or if the people followed a certain set of patterns, that society would be more easily manageable. Was it the general populous that thought this shit up, or maybe…what if…one guy…or a small group of people got together one day and decided that everybody should behave a certain way? But for what reason though? What purpose could that possibly serve? Come to think of it, companies do it to manage their employees. Could they have wanted money from the people? Is it something bigger than that? What I can say for sure though, is that the decision making part of this issue seems very one-sided. If everyone's opinion really matters, why has our society been this way for so long? Nothing society related really stands out anymore. New inventions and fashion trends come about nearly every day, and because it happens so often, it has all become cluttered, blurred, ordinary, mundane, and jumbled. They call this country's diverse racial infrastructure a melting pot. Now it's not just the races that fall under that category, but also the products and behaviors of this society as well. The guy that said that there is nothing new under the sun wasn't joking. The majority of people constantly chase after meaningless goals that don't actually help themselves or other people. The worst part…is that that kind of behavior is also present…in me_," He thought to himself.

Knowing that he wasn't much of an exception to it made him angry. He rolled over in his bed and faced the wall.

"_What are the things that really matter then? *sigh* I don't really feel too much like trying to formulate a damned list right now. I'd rather…I think…I really do miss her. I don't even know her like that. She doesn't even know me either. You know what; I aint dealin' with this shit right now. I'll worry about it later. Time for my afternoon nap_," He thought to himself before he closed his eyes.

* * *

Misty sat alone thinking about the past few years. She remembered how she befriended Jenny, but when their views collided, she immediately turned on her. Jenny was also guilty of the same thing. She also remembered how much pain Jenny was in the day she had planned to challenge her. She denied the compassion she felt when she decided to leave her alone. The worst was when she returned home, and for the first time in six years. She remembered defending her people as many of them were murdered. The carnage had already been happening for about two months by the time she had got there. If only she had known…

She remembered how when the invaders left her home world, she left in a terrible sobbing fury. Landing on another nearby planet, she screamed…...and…she wept. Her people weren't extinct, but many were lost. She had never felt regret until then. She had never before felt such anguish. It was too much for her to handle. The first real sadness she felt in her life was so great, that her mind shattered. Her mind was not prepared to handle the change. When she awoke the following morning, she couldn't remember who she was.

When she realized later that she had purposely tried to erase her memory of the event, she wept again, but this time, she wept because she felt as though her actions were shameful. She felt as though she took the easy way out. Since that time, she had spent large amounts of time regaining a sense of her former self, and then trying to learn what it's like to see the universe through the eyes of those who aren't like her. It was a difficult and treacherous road to travel.

She also remembered sharing her story with Jenny, and how Jenny was there to comfort her as she struggled to force out the necessary words. She remembered apologizing over and over again, and how Jenny tried to calm her down telling her that she had been forgiven.

She smiled and thought to herself "_I'm glad she is such a good friend. Not everyone is willing to forgive me for the kind of person I was_."

She then laughed a little and thought to herself "_I remember a time when I would've criticized her for choosing Sheldon as a boyfriend. That guy is okay though. He's so much more mature than I remember him being_."

She then began humming an old song from her home world that she had heard as a child.

* * *

Later on that night, Mr. Hodges paid everyone a visit. He gathered everyone together for a meeting. Those who needed to continue monitoring equipment or finish projects were able to hear everything said in the meeting through the intercom.

Everyone waited patiently as he loaded the information from his disk onto the computer to be seen by everyone on the large screen.

When the first picture loaded, he finally said "This is the location of Sigma's base. It's located near the North Pole. I'm guessing this is nothing new based on your reaction. I'm guessing that this is his style. This next picture is a diagram of the base before he began modifying it. I'm sure by now the base has quite a different layout from before. He hasn't done much to hide his location as he doesn't consider us to be much of a threat, which is the most likely explanation, and I can tell you also already know that. An earlier plan was to destroy the base using lasers mounted onto orbiting satellite. It was abandoned anyway, so it wouldn't have been considered a significant loss. The plan failed because of a long range jamming frequency emitting from that base. We also sent in a squad of battle robots to try to infiltrate the base, but they never even made it to the base before being destroyed. These robots were some of the most powerful produced in the world, but they didn't have the battle experience of hardened soldiers, and that's why they failed so quickly. They couldn't think for themselves like Jenny can. Admittedly, we did underestimate them, but now we plainly see what we are up against. I don't know about the status of your world's nuclear arsenals, but we have none left after launching them all into our star one by one forty years ago. We thought such weapons were too dangerous to be allowed to exist. That plan is out of the question. We have discovered that the Maverick's numbers are quite high as they claimed, but we're not sure of just how many."

"I'm guessing that this is where soldiers like us come in," Zero said.

"Yes, this is where you come in. It has been decided that we cannot allow them much more time to become stronger. For all we know, they could be finished with whatever projects they're working on. If they are, then the question is what are they waiting for? If they're not, we feel as though you would have a better chance at defeating them. The good news is that we've finished a few projects of our own. You're not going in alone. You'll have a pretty large force to back you up. Our militaries have been given training on how to deal with tactics normally used by Mavericks that you have spelled out for us. We have noticed something strange about them recently. The one called Vile that Jenny has personally met doesn't seem to follow the same patterns that the other Mavericks follow. He often wanders off on his own away from the base. They usually travel in groups of at least two, and even the few that have traveled alone other than Vile are always on a mission of some kind. In his case, he's been seen by several eye witnesses, but none have reported him doing anything other than simply wandering and observing. Each time, it seems casual, as the locations he visits seem random. We thought that some bodies would be found along the path he's traveled, but that's not the case. He doesn't seem to have killed anyone since his encounter with Jenny. What is your input?" Mr. Hodges asked.

"That is a very strange thing for him to do. Then again, he's always been very strange. We really have no real clue as to why he serves Sigma in the first place. It seems like his relationship with Sigma is more businesslike than the others. The others usually talk as if they owe Sigma something, one of the Hunters explained.

"I didn't even understand that guy much when he used to be one of us. He was always a loner. He dreaded every time he was partnered with someone else. He was always a fire starter, as he would intentionally make more out of a mission than it really needed to be. It was always hard to even hold a simple conversation with him, as he would always end it as quickly as he possibly could. When he decided to work for Sigma was when he started talking a lot. He had begun to show a louder more boastful side of his personality. He doesn't really seem to care about reploid supremacy the way Sigma does at all. It seems as though he's more interested in the excitement he gets out of the struggle…and the usual attempts to prove that he's the best fighter among reploids," Zero explained.

"I think I understand. He's the reckless…competitive…businessman type. Beyond that, his motives are still undetermined. Now that that is out of the way, we've decided that the best time to attack is in four days. You will be alerted when it's time for you to mobilize. I have to say that I feel much better now that you finished repairing and modifying your daughters' enhancers, Ms. Wakeman. Of course, I'll understand if they decide not to fight. This is their lives that they'd be putting on the line," Mr. Hodges said.

"I was about to comment on how selfish you sounded before you showed concern for their lives. I hope you are sincere and not just good with comforting words," Ms. Wakeman replied.

"I'm not that selfish. Besides; my own son said that he'll gladly fight right alongside me should you all fail, and I'm proud of his bravery. It's not like we'll have much of a choice anyway. Oh yes, and Misty; thank you for joining us. I never would've guessed that you would, but now that you're here, I thank you for your change of heart. I wish you the best of fortune. I hope you all come back alive," Mr. Hodges said.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Angel said with a grin.


	37. Chapter 37

Grace found a way to sneak out of the base with Angel's help. She decided to wear a black cloth over her body to hide herself. She moved very stealthy until she was able to travel underground by another abandoned subway tunnel she knew about. There, she transformed just enough to be able to run at about seventy miles per hour, but she didn't transform enough to begin emitting a strong enough energy wave to be detected through the layer of ground, concrete and steel above her.

She returned to normal before she exited the tunnel. She then traveled for about fifteen minutes hiding herself along the way until she arrived at her destination. Scanning the area, she knew that the coast was clear. She climbed the side of a building until she saw the window she was looking for.

She knocked on the window very softly so as not to be heard by anyone else besides the person she was trying to wake. Soon, she heard something touch the wall beside the window.

The barely inaudible voice in the room said "I don't know who the hell you are, but I have a gun. Don't you try anything stupid."

Nervously, Grace replied "Don't worry…Jason. It's me, Grace."

Jason's eyes widened with confusion as he quickly turned to face her. Sure enough, it was not an imposter.

He opened the window and asked "What are you doing here?"

"C-can…I come in?" Grace asked.

"Okay. Come in before somebody notices an unknown person clinging to the side of this building," Jason replied as he backed away from the window.

Grace climbed in and closed the window behind her. To her surprise, Jason actually did have a gun in his hand.

"I guess…you must be planning…to fight in case…the first wave fails…too," Grace said.

"Well, yeah! A whole lot of people are buying guns. I know I'm not old enough to buy one, but that doesn't mean I can't ask my family for one. I don't plan on dying without a fight. Why did you come here by the way?" Jason asked.

"Don't…tell anyone this, but in four days, a large-scale…offensive will be launched against…the Mavericks. I want you to…know so you can…prepare…and so you can…enjoy yourself as much…as possible for the…next few days. They may be your last," Grace answered.

A few seconds later, Jason said "I was wondering, why me? I thought about it…and I remembered that you don't really have many friends…or even associates for that matter. The thing is…I didn't know you even paid much attention to me. We really haven't talked to each other in a couple of months."

"I…I'm sorry. I've been through a lot…of changes in my life, so I didn't…think much about trying to…be anyone's friend. Truth be told; I kind of…thought you were ignoring…me too. How have you been lately?" Grace asked.

"Besides the fear of impending doom, I've been fine," Jason answered.

Grace smirked and said "I thought…you might say something like that: always painting…a crude mental picture…with your responses."

Jason took a deep breath to relieve the tension, grinned, and then said "You know me pretty well. I'm guessing you didn't use the front door because you didn't want to alert my grandmother. I'm also assuming you snuck out of that place you guys have been hiding out in."

"You guessed correctly. I also snuck out…because I'm tired of seeing…the same faces every day. I need a little time away…from that place, even if it is only a few…hours," Grace explained.

"That's fine. If you want to sit down; feel free," Jason said as he pointed at his bed.

He turned and walked over to his study desk and pulled a chair over to the bed and sat in it. By then, Grace was already sitting down on his bed.

"So, rumor is that your actually part machine, but you didn't know until that day that big fight broke out," Jason guessed.

"It's true. I didn't know. I was…afraid at first. I didn't…know what to think. I'm getting used to it. The media must've…did a good job at cutting out large…portions of that event. It's no wonder you're asking. That arm transformation…I did that day when I killed…Axel wasn't biological, it was mechanical…in a sense. Nano-machines are what they are, but they're made…of biological tissues," Grace explained.

Jason smiled and said "That's pretty amazing. I didn't know anyone had ever developed that kind. I thought it was too complicated. I guess that red lady with the wings that the news did show must've been you. I thought as much. How did you manage to become red though?"

"Don't be…alarmed when I do…this. My voice…is about to change, and that's because…the machines have…actually developed a…personality of their own," Grace warned.

"O-okay. You mean that there's another…person…living inside you," Jason guessed concerned.

Grace's voice then changed, and then Angel said "I've been waiting to meet you in person for a while now, Jason. If you're wondering, my proper name is The Red Angel, but you can just call me Angel."

Wide-eyed, Jason paused for a few seconds, and then said "Okay. Wow! I really wasn't prepared for that. What the hell? I might as well follow the flow of things. All right….where to begin? Okay…Angel…based on what you just said…would I be correct in assuming that you've been hiding yourself from us all along? Don't get me wrong. I'm not offended. I just wanna know why."

"Not offended, huh? I'm not going to try and debate that part, but as to why…look at it this way; I didn't think anyone was ready for me to 'suddenly' appear, and that goes for Grace also. We were almost killed by a bomb blast, and that's why I surfaced. If I hadn't, we'd be dead. I didn't have a choice in the matter. I had been trying to find a way to go about it without putting her in danger. For one thing, do you think she'd be allowed to attend your school anymore if I had shown myself? It's different now that I showed myself in the way and circumstance that I did. Since my unveiling involved me fighting on the side of the human race, your society will more easily accept my existence. It'll basically be another Jenny repeat. On the other hand, how do you think the students and staff of Tremorton High would've reacted if I suddenly said 'Hi everybody? My name is Angel. I'm a robot that's been living inside Grace for most of her life. You wanna see me transform?" Chaos is the proper word to describe the reaction," Angel explained.

"All right. I see your point. Luckily for you, an explanation for your existence is scheduled to be aired on TV soon. It wouldn't be good for you to walk into school and announce yourself without everyone's prior knowledge," Jason added.

"That's good. I kind of figured they planned to explain why they didn't make a big deal about me. They would want to try and save their asses. I see the way you're looking at me. You wanna see me transform. It's not a good idea. If I do, my energy signature will likely be detected. You'll see it later on when this Maverick business is done. I hope I survive long enough," Angel said.

"Dammit! I did wanna see that too," Jason said disappointed.

Grace then said nervously "Jason. Listen. There's something…I need to talk…to you about."

"What is it?" Jason asked.

"I've heard…someone say…that…you reacted very…harshly when you saw me…collapse. Wait, not yet. Let me finish. I heard that you…left school right after that…and that you didn't return…for a couple…of days. I want you to be honest with me. Did you…feel hurt…when I collapsed?" Grace asked.

A moment passed as Jason nervously tried to think of what to say.

"Grace. I…don't know…what to say. I…I…" He said as he could no longer look her in the eye.

He was so nervous, that he didn't know what to say. She could see that. This was a situation that he apparently had no experience with.

"Jaso…" Grace said.

Jason cut her off by saying nervously "I don't know! I don't…know. I'm not sure what to…"

"You don't…ever seem to care much about…anyone's wellbeing. Now there's this. I don't understand. Why me?" Grace asked.

Jason was breathing heavily and his heart was beating heavily as well.

"I'm not sure how to explain…" Jason answered.

A moment later, Grace asked "You…really haven't spent much time…around someone outside…of your circle, have you?"

Jason only continued looking down at his lap nervously. Though he was unresponsive, Grace got the message pretty well.

"I haven't…either, Jason. I've only made…a few friends in my…life. I'm the same as you: a person who hardly values…popularity at all. We both know…that everyone has an ego…and would like to be…popular to a certain extent, but that extent…is very small for us. We decided to…weed out the fake friends and stick with the few…good ones. Is that really what we wanted? I don't think so. I think we wanted to…have plenty of friends…but we discovered early on that either very few people are worth…being friends…with or most people don't genuinely care about us because of how…different we are. You did spend…some time with me, but then there was the shock…of me suddenly coming to your…rescue. You didn't expect that…from anyone, especially not from me, and especially since I pointed…a loaded gun at you. You would normally expect…people to leave someone like…you behind down in that tunnel, but I didn't. I treat you differently…from the way the average…person does, and I think…because of that, you see me as…a potential friend, but you don't know…what to say to me. I think that's why…you've been avoiding talking to…me," Grace explained.

By then, Jason was looking her in the eye with wide opened eyes and mouth slightly hung open.

A few seconds later, he said "I….don't know what to say. Wait, I…umm…most people don't want to talk to me much, or be near me at all for that matter. I thought you didn't like the things I said to people. People usually avoid me for that reason."

"And that's supposed to…be okay? I know you're…not okay with…that. All that…grinning you do can't…be how…you feel about that. So…you hate it when people…intentionally avoid you, but then you…push them away even…more, and then pretend as though you're…content with that, like some…kind of 'Well, I might as well learn…to like my fucked up…reality' deal? I know…that's bullshit. I…do it too, in my own…way, and I hate it when I…do it. You pretend…as though it's okay, but I can't…keep doing it myself…anymore. Seeing you do it makes me…hate myself doing it," Grace replied angrily.

"Are you…saying that you want…to be my…friend?" Jason asked nervously.

A moment later, Grace replied "I need to finish."

She then took a deep breath and said "I was talking…to XJ6 and Sheldon…recently, and you became part of…the topic of…conversation. Based on…what Sheldon told me…this is probably going…to seem out the blue, but…do you…have a crush on me?"

He was so nervous that he could barely find any words to say. He could see that she was also very nervous as well: more nervous than he's ever seen her before.

Grace then said "If you do, it makes sense. Based on every…testimonial, you've never had a romantic…relationship. Sheldon also said that…he notices that the…way you look…at me is different from the…way you look at other…girls. That combined with the…fact that you…were so hurt…when seeing me hurt…well…I'd say it's a good guess."

A moment later, Grace said "The…fact that you're so…nervous says…something."

"Him of all people. Then again, he is…actually…the most likely to notice…when I really stop and think about it. I see it all now. I should've seen it when we met in the store. That part of me that lets me know if I have a crush on somebody or not…well, I've actually managed to hide it away to protect myself from falling for one of the usual 'bad-influence' and 'not-worth-it' girls. Now that I look at it, I realize that I've hidden it from myself so well, that I didn't see it for what it is until now. That's what that feeling is. I think…I do…have a crush on you. What…about you?" Jason asked nervously.

Grace took a few quick deep breaths to calm down some, and then she replied while blushing "You're the first…guy…to ever say that…to me. I needed to know…how you felt, and that's…why I came here. I didn't see it either…but if I came all the way here…"

"That's not good enough," Jason responded.

"What?" Grace asked surprised.

"You came all this way, but all you can prove to me, with that statement, is that you came here to verify the way I feel about you. I need to know how you feel about me. I need to know details. I like many things about you. I think you're beautiful. You don't creep me out like you do others. Your wide-eyed stare actually excites me. I like the way you dress. Everything about you that other people would normally find **'creepy,' **physical and personality-wise, I think is interesting, and it excites me. I've been looking for a girl who's description doesn't fit the norm for a while now. I had never before seen anyone like you before, so I didn't know whether I liked you or not at first. Now that I've come to grips with my scrambled emotions, I know I like you now. I can tell by your blush that you're surprised at how straightforward I'm being now, and the fact that I've calmed down so quickly. Now that I can make sense out of all of this, I don't have a good reason to shy away from you," Jason explained while grinning.

Blushing furiously, Grace said "Oh my God! I can…say this; no guy has ever made me…blush this hard. I usually…hide my blushes when I…react to your…displays of confidence whenever you go…on your rants. You're the only guy…who has ever managed to make…my emotions stir as much as you. That's not good enough though. I find the people I like…the most the ones…I feel the greatest sense of…a need to protect, body, mind, and heart. For some reason, you're in that…category. I did risk my…life for you against that robot, and against Jenny. I like how you aren't…afraid to speak on…real issues that most people keep…to themselves. I really do like the fact that you…see me…in such a…good light, unlike most other people. I also like…how you don't try to be…like the other guys, and…I do think you're attractive."

"Sounds like you have a crush to me," Jason said with a blush.

A few seconds later, Grace said "I guess so!"

"I see we're not that different from each other. Our emotions are scrambled from trying to cope with our realities," Jason said.

Jason noticed her breathing becoming heavier as she seemed even more nervous that before. After thinking about it, he soon realized what it was. She was afraid to move to the next step. He was too, but if he waited too long, the situation could change for the worst. His breathing became heavier as well. He slowly got out of his chair and slowly leaned in towards her. Grace's nervousness was so great that she almost involuntarily slowly backed away from him. He slowly reached out and grabbed her shoulders, pulled her towards him, and finally kissed her on the lips. They both tensed up from the way their first kisses felt. Neither of them had done this before. Unable to control themselves, they began wrapping their arms around each other and kissed passionately. About a minute later, Jason pulled away from her.

"Listen, Grace. Neither of us are used to this yet. I think we need to take it slow. If we move too fast, we might do something stupid," Jason explained.

While still clutching folds of his shirt, Grace took a deep breath, calmed down a little, and then said "You're right. Slow is better. This happens to be just the right atmosphere for us to do something stupid in."

"Yeah. One more thing. This 'Angel' of yours; I want you to know that I'm not interested in her the way I'm into you. I hope she doesn't take this personally," Jason added.

"Don't worry about that. There's no need for me to take it personally. Me and Grace are practically the same person. All five of our senses are permanently fused anyway…if you know what I mean," Angel said followed by a laugh.

"Angel! You're a dirty minded girl!" Jason said surprised at how straightforward she was as she continued to laugh.

Grace then said "You're a real ass, Angel. I want you to know…that."

"I bet she's still laughing about it too, aint she?" Jason asked.

Grace then nodded her head indicating a yes.

* * *

Grace managed to sneak back into the base unnoticed a few hours later. The only person who was aware that she wasn't in her room was XJ6, but even she wouldn't have guessed that Grace managed to bypass such high-end security and sneak out without being detected.

When Grace finally closed the door to her room behind her, she leaned her back against the door and smiled as she thought about her first kiss. It had been about three years since she'd felt giddy about anything. She then walked across the room and lay in her bed.

After thinking about Jason for a few minutes, she suddenly started laughing out loud at yet another dirty joke that Angel made.

* * *

Jenny was spending several hours a day training harder than ever. In fact, even her own mother had never before seen her train this intensely. She was a little concerned that she may be pushing herself too hard, but she was proud of her daughter nevertheless. Everyone else trained as well, but a lot of them didn't feel as though their efforts were enough.

* * *

The last might before the big day was the hardest. Everyone was terrified, though only a few actually showed it. The collective feeling as though there was a bomb about to explode at any moment didn't help anyone to be able to enjoy themselves.

In mid-training, Jenny collapsed to her knees, buried her face in her hands, and started crying out loud. No one needed to ask why. The reason was obvious.

"I'm giving it all I have to prepare for this! I don't wanna die!" Jenny screamed and then continued crying.

Her family came rushing to her side to try to comfort her. Sheldon soon joined them. They tried to calm her, but they made little progress. A minute later, Vexus made her way over to the crowd and knelt down directly in front of Jenny's line of sight. A few of Jenny's family wondered why Vexus was interfering. They felt as though she could only make things worse.

In a trembling voice, Vexus spoke up and said "Some of you might not want to take what I'm about to say seriously, and that's fine, I…understand why. I'm scared too. I have never been…so terrified…in all my life. I'm so afraid, that I actually considered suicide last night."

Most people who knew her were shocked to hear her say that.

She then continued saying "I asked myself, 'Why should I risk myself for them? How would it…benefit me? Would it be easier to just…end it now?' That's when it hit me. I realized…how cowardly I am. I say I want to help. I say I want to try helping people, but now, in order to do that, I have to put my life on the line against God knows how many enemies. I feel like I deserve it. I haven't rushed into a real war zone in so long, that I don't know if I even have to nerve. I'm no longer commanding an army to risk their lives for my sake. But here's the funny thing about it. I was less afraid of killing myself than I am now that I decided to go through with fighting. I used to think it was the other way around. But what's really scaring me the most now…is the thought that if I had killed myself, two thousand plus years would've been completely wasted. The person I thought myself to be…would've been for nothing: a lie. I always used to think of myself as doing something good with my life, but now that I'm finally discovering what is actually good, if I had killed myself, that would prove that I was a waste. None of that is why I feel like crying right now though. Seeing you recover this much from your attempt at suicide is motivating me to continue and to push myself. Seeing you cry and panic like this is really screwing with my resolve. Before I walked over here, I had this terrible mental image of you killing yourself out of fear. I think your suicide attempt really got to me more than I thought. Please don't…keep…crying like that. If you…did…if you do that to yourself now, I…wouldn't know…what I would do."

She buried her face in her hands and started crying. Seeing Vexus cry like this was one of the most shocking things most of the others had seen in a long time. They were finally starting to see just how negatively her isolation period had affected her. Most of them never thought they'd see the day that Vexus would break down and cry like that.

At that moment, she didn't seem like a former tyrant. She seemed more like an ordinary woman.

Her other knee finally touched the ground , she folded her arms, and then bent downwards and continued crying. For the first time, a lot of the others felt compassion for her. Jenny then crawled over to Vexus and hugged her. As they cried together, most of the others couldn't believe what they were seeing.

"I see it. People cannot continue to find reasons to fight each other. If we do, look at what we could lose. I never thought I'd see them like this either, but if mortal enemies like them can make up, why can't we? We keep fighting over such stupid things. What the hell is wrong with us?" Tuck asked with one of the most serious tones he's ever expressed in his life.

For once, Tuck's mother didn't scold him for his use of profanity. She totally agreed with him. Everyone else had mixed feelings about the situation. A lot of them were no longer sure of many things all of a sudden.


	38. Chapter 38

All he could hear was the sound of his own breathing. All he could see was the small monitor in front of him surrounded in darkness. The monitor showed a map moving with the small blinking dot.

"_So close. I'm ready to get this over with. I can't afford to let her down_," Sheldon thought to himself.

He took a moment to take a deep breath. Thirty seven seconds later, he heard the sound of the buzzer.

As soon as the pod dropped from the bottom of the giant air craft, he yelled "Full power on!"

The pod broke apart revealing that Sheldon was piloting his new improved Silver Shell. The battle had already started. Powerful laser rounds were being fired in the direction of the giant aircraft as the aircraft was also returning fire. The sounds of war were near deafening. As soon as he dodged a few laser rounds, he caught a glimpse of Jenny dodging some herself. He didn't stare because he'd then be risking his life. He smiled and swooped straight downward to merge with the crowed of ground troops.

"Hey! It's Silver Shell, everybody!" One of the soldier yelled out.

Some of the soldiers took the time out to look up at him who was flying about six feet above them.

"Today is the big day. I wish you soldiers good luck. Please don't die on me," Sheldon yelled out as he picked up speed leaving the crowd behind.

Ground troops, both human and robot, and tanks were everywhere. The bright colors from the lasers illuminated the ice below them, along with the sight and sound of explosions actually excited Sheldon as he made his way towards the base.

After taking out a few mounted cannons, he yelled out "You will not kill me today!"

* * *

As soon as both X and Zero touched the ground, they both decided to transform.

X jumped into the air yelling "Now! Shadow Armor!"

He glowed brightly, and then he emerged from the ball of light running at blazing speeds. He was covered from head to toe in mostly black armor that looked a lot like a ninja's outfit. He began slashing through both enemies and mounted guns with a yellow beam saber protruding from his arm cannon.

Zero emerged from his ball of bright light doing a continuous dash with his Z-Saber in hand activated. The red portion of his armor was now black, and his hair was now silver instead of blond. The color of his Z-Saber was also no longer green, but bright purple.

As an enemy saw him approaching, he said nervously, "Shit! Why did I have to get Zero, and in his black armor no less?"

* * *

Jenny decided that her best strategy was to focus most of her energy into the energy barrier she set up around herself as she tries to find a way inside the base. At this point, she felt as though she would lose too much energy trying to fight against outside forces. She and Misty both flew side by side.

* * *

Melody, with her upgrade already activated, flew alongside Vexus. The other XJs had their strength enhancers already activated and volunteered to help the soldiers and the other Maverick Hunters fight on the ground. Grace already transformed was doing a whole lot better than she thought she would. Even Angel was surprised at how powerful they were. Even so, they could not let their guard down for a second.

Misty decided to try and keep as many soldiers alive as possible, so she mostly stayed near the ground.

Many Skyway Patrol members were also there fighting. Many veterans of whom hadn't served since the first intergalactic war had volunteered to fight as well. It was indeed a full scale assault. It was decided that sending only a small force in at a time was too great a risk. It was all or nothing this time.

* * *

As some of the Mavericks waiting inside the base watched the large screen, Sting Chameleon said nervously "And here I was thinking this was going to be a prolonged war, not a one day battle. I never would've guessed they'd actually send in so many troops all at once."

"It is surprising. They would never normally be willing to risk so many of their troops and spend so much money organizing this. Modern governments have never behaved this way before not even in our world. Smytus and Krackus must've taught them an important lesson," Sigma added with a grin.

"You're not nervous, Master? Your backup plan must be better than I thought," another Maverick guessed.

"It's better than you know. All right! I want Division D to head to the main entrance and protect it. To make you all feel better, I'm sending help with you. In the mean time, the rest of you follow me to the lower level.

* * *

Sheldon mad managed to get within about a hundred feet of the main entrance when his sensors told him to back away ASAP. He did so at the last moment as he dodged a powerful explosion from below. The explosion shook the ground below as two large figures came rising out of the hole in the ground. Most of the action outside halted as they all wondered who the figures were.

"Shit, it's High-Max! But who is the other one? I don't recognize him," Zero yelled.

Jenny couldn't believe her eyes. The second figure was mostly unrecognizable, but she recognized one feature.

She raised her voice, and yelled "No! It can't be you! I thought you were dead! How can you still be alive?"

The figure looked in her direction, and then yelled in a loud and deep voice "Yes! I see you haven't forgotten my eyes, XJ9! I, Killgore, challenge you to a rematch, right here, right now! What are you fools doing standing around staring? Kill the humans and their partners now!"

With that, he took off in Jenny's direction at full speed, screaming angrily, leaving a pool of melted ice behind him with the heat from his rockets. High-Max stood there watching Killgore for a few seconds before returning his attention to the field.

He then yelled "If anyone wants to get through this entrance, they will have to go through me first. Try your best. I want to see a good show. And my brothers in arms; fight harder or I will destroy you myself.

As Jenny fought with Killgore, both X and Zero headed directly towards High-Max.

As High-Max's attention was mostly focused on Zero, he thought to himself "_Here they come. It was only a matter of time. You are too dangerous to left alive, Zero. The nightmare must be destroyed_."

He began by forming a blue energy field around himself in the shape of a ribbon-like ring, but the energy did not appear to be solid. It looked like an array of some kind of writing in an unknown language.

As they approached, X yelled "He wasn't able to raise that barrier that quickly last time. Get ready to hit em' hard."

High-Max pointed his left palm towards them and started rapidly firing small black energy balls surrounded in electricity. Both X and Zero dodged knowing that there would be casualties, but there was little they could do about it and save themselves at the same time.

Both of them weaved between the attacks, and finally, X released a huge wave of rotating quarter-moon shaped blades of yellow energy. High-Max barely dodged them, but received a small scratched on his right knee. Heading straight upwards, he watched his opponents carefully.

"Try dodging this!" Zero yelled as his entire body glowed bright purple.

He dashed straight upwards, not with the rockets on the bottoms of his feet, but with the energy itself. Even High-Max knew he couldn't dodge that in time, so he focused, and then grabbed Zero's sword with his bare hands. The shock began rocketing them both straight upwards.

High-Max then strained to yell "Is that what you had planned; a javelin attack? I expected more from the nightmare!"

They both struggled against each other, growling the entire time.

A few seconds later, High-Max yelled "Get off me!"

He mustered enough strength to throw Zero to the side. Zero's barrier disappeared for a couple of seconds as it appeared as though he was going to go plummeting to the ground. To High-Max's surprise, Zero's barrier reactivated suddenly followed by another dash straight up into the air, and then a sharp curve, followed by a descent straight downwards heading for the top of High-Max's head.

High-Max didn't expect this maneuver, so he didn't think to dodge the attack, but he did manage to catch the blade once again with his hands. By the time High-Max realized that Zero was trying to smash him into the ground, Zero had already pushed out even more energy into his attack.

Rocketing towards the ground, Zero said with a grin "You asked for a nightmarish attack, and you got it. This should kill me too, but I know how to get off of you in time so I won't hurt myself, but what about you?"

A couple of seconds later, X grabbed Zero in mid jump carrying him to safety just before High-Max smashed into the ground. The weight of his huge body caused the ground to shake for over a hundred yards.

When X and Zero landed, Zero said "Thanks man. I probably could have gotten off of him in time by myself, but it's easier when you do it for me."

"You're welcome, but look sharp. He might not be dead," X replied.

"Right!" Zero said as he regained his focus.

Suddenly, High-Max jumped straight up out of the hole and stopped in mid air.

"Surprised? That only caused minimal damage. You have improved: both of you, but my body has been heavily upgraded…what does she think she's doing?" High-Max asked in disbelief.

X and Zero both looked to see Grace flying in their direction.

"Wait! She's not coming towards us, she's charging High-Max dead on! Is she insane? She'll be killed!" X yelled.

"Fine by me. Just try me, Red Angel!" High-Max yelled.

"Don't do it, Grace!" Zero yelled.

Grace and Angel both started screaming in unison as they concentrated a lot of energy into their flame barrier. High-Max's previously confident expression then became one of fear and anger. He then raised the barrier from before once again, but this time, it was double-layered. He then fired bright white laser pulses from his eyes. Grace didn't even slow down for a second as the lasers fizzled out upon impact.

This time, High-Max tried beam lasers instead of pulses. He pushed a lot of power into them. Upon impact, Grace was finally being slowed down. As she pushed to get closer to her target, hers and Angel's screaming became louder.

"That double barrier will be hard to break through, but I could try…" X thought to himself.

He then jumped into the air, reverted to his normal armor, and then it changed from its usual colors to sky blue and yellow. He absorbed a lot of energy, and then released it from his buster. When the ice impacted, it exploded and incased most of High-Max's body in a mass of ice. The explosion, plus the cloud of residue, distracted High-Max enough to cease his laser firing.

Grace then broke right through both layers of his barrier and the ice and punched him directly in the chest releasing enough energy to cause a huge explosion. The explosion was strong enough to push her away from it, and it sent her flying away from it with her body flailing around out of control.

Surprised, Zero yelled "That was amazing! I didn't know she could do that!"

As Grace regained he composure and landed, the explosion cleared enough to reveal High-Max still alive. Grace grinned when she realized that he had a large crater in his chest.

As High-Max looked down at the spark shooting out of his chest, he then screamed "ENOUGH OF THESE GAMES!"

He then screamed at the top of his lungs, and his body then glowed a blinding bright blue. This made a lot of the field action stop once again only just to cover their eyes. Many people felt their body being forced away from the spot that they were in. For over two miles, the force of the explosion spread outwards away from the front of High-Max's body.

* * *

When Jenny regained consciousness, she looked around for a moment wondering why her vision was so blurry. A few moments later, she suddenly remembered that that bright light High-Max was responsible for making was responsible. She then took a moment to run auto repair on her vision.

As her vision began clearing up, she slowly stood up and began feeling her way around.

"I'm inside of an underground cave. That hole in the ceiling says that I crashed right through it. My vision is almost repaired now. It's time to get out of here and back to the battlefield," She said as she prepared her rockets.

Suddenly, she was knocked into a nearby wall. When she turned around, a hand grabbed her neck and pushed her against the wall. She then realized it was Killgore. His face and body was shaking with frustrated anger.

Killgore then yelled "That face makes me angry! Why are you making that face?"

"What do you mean?" Jenny growled.

A moment later, Killgore replied "This isn't the way it was supposed to be. You must be an imposter. You're not XJ9."

He lifted her off the ground and held her high.

"What the hell are you…talking about? I am…XJ9."

In a frustrated growl, Killgore raised his voice, and then strained out the words "You can't be her! You just can't be! You…look like her…but you don't look like her! You act like her, but you don't act like her! Tell me where I can find the real XJ9…so I can have my victory!"

She then tried to kick him in the face, but he grabbed her foot and slammed her into the ground. When she turned over to face him, he stared down at her with an extremely disappointed expression.

"You're not the same either, Killgore. Did you ever notice that?" Jenny asked with a surprisingly calm tone.

"I made myself better so that I may finally triumph over my greatest nemesis!" Killgore said.

He then jumped up, and landed straddled over Jenny, with his fist in the ground. Jenny moved her head to the side at the last moment. He then punched at her face over and over again screaming each time, and each time, she dodged the punch.

When he stopped, he then screamed "But you weren't supposed to change! What happened to you? How did you lose your pride? Why are you so angry now? Why are you so sad? If I kill you now…as you are…all the time I spent preparing for this day will be for nothing."

A few seconds later, Jenny slowly raised her right hand and placed it gently on his left shoulder. Surprised, he froze not knowing what to do next.

Jenny smiled slightly, and then said "You're not the only one Killgore. A lot of time has passed since we last met. A lot of things have changed in that time too…and we've both had a lot of disappointments since. I am not…the same Jenny from before…and I'll never be her again. I've changed too much. Two years is a long time. So, you really don't watch the news, do you? Did you know that I attempted suicide?"

Shocked, Killgore asked "You?"

"Mm hmm," Jenny answered as she nodded her head.

A moment later, Killgore said "That sad look in your eyes. I see. You're telling me the truth."

"You have to understand, Killgore, there's nothing to be gained from this anymore. Even if you did manage to kill me, that wouldn't make you the greatest villain. The stakes have become too high, and whether or not the people live to see tomorrow, is no longer solely up to me. I'm not that special anymore. If you kill me now, people will think of it as more along the lines of the death of another celebrity. I used to be famous enough for this to matter, but not now. That time has passed. Not only that, but you wouldn't get the credit anyway because you got your upgrade from Sigma," Jenny explained.

Killgore lowered his head in shame, and then said "You're right. You've always been right. I was never able to outwit you. If you are so smart, tell me what I should do now."

"I don't know. This is one time I do not have an answer for you. I know what you shouldn't do. Please don't give up on life," Jenny said with a slight tremble in her voice.

He looked back at her face surprised, and then asked "What?"

Jenny then continued saying "Maybe I'm just overreacting, but whenever I see someone fail at something and become sad…I imagine them trying to take their own life…just as I did."

A moment later, Killgore said "I don't plan on doing that. I'm keeping my life for as long as I can."

"That's good. But listen, I might be asking the wrong person, but we could really use your help," Jenny said.

Killgore grinned and replied "So, this is the second time you ask for Killgore's help. I was wrong about you. If you need help from somebody, more than once, maybe I wouldn't get much glory out of killing you after all."

"That also proves that I'm not the same anymore. What you just said would've offended the old me," Jenny said while smiling.

"All right. I'll help you this time, but if I feel like I'm in too much danger, I'm leaving. I don't plan on dying for the humans like you'd be willing to. When this is over, our rivalry is officially terminated," Killgore explained.

"But that's just it; I never wanted a rivalry with you. I was annoyed with you at first, but I got over it. In a lot of ways, I wish you were still the cute little wind-up robot you once were," Jenny said with a smile.

Killgore laughed, slowly stood up, and then helped Jenny to her feet.

"I guess a lot really has changed. A wind-up toy. I once was just that too. Whatever. We need to get out of here. Those guys must be worried sick about you," Killgore said.

"Right! Let's get going," Jenny said.

And with that, they both activated their rockets and headed upwards and out of the hole in the ceiling.

* * *

X followed the signal that Zero was emitting. He wandered around searching for around twelve minutes before he noticed Zero's right foot sticking up out of the ice in the distance. He ran over to Zero and began pulling him out. About thirty seconds later, he had Zero lying on his back trying to wake him up.

The sound of a distant explosion caused Zero's eyes to shoot open.

"You're finally awake," X said relieved.

"What a monster? That…High-Max could never have pulled that one off before. Sigma went all the way with his upgrade. How long have I been out for?" Zero asked.

"About twenty minutes," X answered.

As Zero stood up his said "For all we know, all the humans on that field could be…"

X cut him off by saying "We really…shouldn't be so pessimistic."

As they both started walking, Zero said "X. No offense, but you're usually more pessimistic than me."

Angrily, X asked "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"You wish for a better world, but you don't see much hope for it. You didn't think I noticed? I don't know what Grace said to you, but I know she made you spill your guts all over the place. I didn't have to investigate any further than the looks in your eyes the next time you ran into each other to figure out what happened. Jenny told me earlier that that girl has a way of bringing out people's hidden anger. Remembering that little tidbit, it wasn't hard for me to connect the dots," Zero replied.

"Even if I did spi…" X said angrily.

Zero turned around suddenly and cut X off by grabbing his left shoulder with his right hand.

"Why the hell do you continue, X? Are you insane? You suddenly got dropped into another world that you didn't know existed, and then you felt an even greater sense of responsibility fall on your shoulders? I told you a long time ago that you are unrealistic, but now you've risen to brand new level. Haven't you figured it out yet? People are people, and they're always gonna be the way they are. That's what the problem is. You can't fix the problem unless you actually reprogram their minds. Most people are constantly thinking of how far are the willing to push the idea of helping others until circumstances make them resort to self-preservation. A lot of people, on the other hand, only think of self-preservation. I know that drives you up the wall. I know it pisses you the hell off. The reality is that most people are not confident enough in what they have to want to make real sacrifice for the benefit of others. Reploids are the same way. Most people feel weak and scared even though they usually don't admit it. A lot of them don't even know how to admit it to themselves. So I guess their problem is what they feel they have to fall back on in case things don't work out. Look around you, X. The world is a harsh environment to live in, with very little resources as it is, and a growing number of mouths to feed. Not everybody has the emotional strength and enthusiasm that you have, man. Unless you can make up for the difference, things will remain as they are, or probably get worse. To do that, you would have to be pretty much omnipotent, and that's because mortal bodies, flesh or metal, can't handle that kind of stress," Zero explained.

His eyes racing, and in his frustration, X asked "Then what…"

He removed Zero's hand, turned away from him, stared at the ground, and asked in a loud frustrated tone that even surprised Zero "Then what am I supposed to do, huh? What the hell was Dr. Light thinking when he made me? Was it just the dying wish of a depressed unfulfilled old man that I was created? Am I just following in the footsteps of his delusions? He said my name was X. He said that the variable, X, stood for unlimited potential for growth. How long is it supposed to take to reach the level necessary for me to be that champion for the people he wanted me to be? I want them to live a better life, even if it's without me. I don't want them to see me as some god. I just want to make all this better to live in. I just want them to love each other and live a full life. I've been fighting for a very…very long time now. If I'm supposed to be so damned special, Dr. Light, why is it taking so long to see any improvement?"

He then fell to his knees and began sobbing. He felt a great deal of his strength leave him.

"I thank you for coming to my rescue, X. You've always been a good friend to me. According to Dr. Wily's plans, that wasn't supposed to be possible. The belief in God has mostly left both our worlds, or at least the number of the believers of the past and the believers of today is quite a big difference. The point is that if he is real, the fact that a great evil like I was supposed to become hasn't destroyed the world, but instead helped save it, seems as though some kind of intervention happened to help achieve a balance, or at least allow the course of events to flow the way the always have. Since I can't prove it, it could've been mere coincidence," Zero said.

As X continued crying, Zero turned and walked in the direction of the battle saying "I don't really know what to tell you, old friend. I think you made the huge mistake of putting all of your eggs in one basket, and when that basket began to fail you, well, you know the rest. Please don't take what I'm saying as an insult. I really do want the best for you. I still chose to have hope for them, X. I'm gonna go help them fight now."

The sound of Zero's voice began to diminish as he got farther and farther away from X. The sound of the wind began to take over as X was no longer able to hear Zero's running clearly. About twenty or so seconds later, all X could hear was the sounds of the wind, the sounds of the battle in the distance, and his own sobbing.


	39. Chapter 39

As Jenny and Killgore approached the now huge gaping hole the used to be the entrance to the fortress, Sheldon flew in beside them so they could all go in together. Many other people had already gone inside. Jenny already communicated with the others that Killgore had agreed to help out. They felt uneasy about it, but they didn't have too much time to argue the case.

"Since you know the layout better than us, will you be our guide, Killgore?" Jenny asked.

"That won't be a problem for me. I just can't wait to get this over with. By the way Sheldon; I'm not going to set XJ9 up for a trap. Yes, I've known you were Silver Shell's pilot for a long time now. On that topic, why would you let Sheldon join us, XJ9? His bravery won't help him once that battle suit is destroyed," Killgore pointed out.

"It's a matter of principle. If I built him for war, he should be used. If I just hide in a box until the battle is over, that would make me a cowardly hypocrite," Sheldon explained.

A few seconds of confusion passed before Killgore said "Oh, now I understand! This must be a new improved version. The original was built to get closer to Jenny…and if Jenny's not surprised at any of this, then…you two really must have gotten together."

Jenny smiled in an odd way, patted Kilgore on his head, and then said "You really are a genius to have figured that out so quickly."

Embarrassed, Killgore said "Please don't do that."

"I need to ask you a favor, Killgore. I know we already have an agreement, but if you can, if Silver Shell is destroyed but Sheldon is still alive, will you please bring him to a safe place?" Jenny asked in a deadly serious and pleading tone.

A few seconds later, Killgore answered "I was planning on saving myself, but I won't refuse such a request. I will do it if I can. You have my word."

"Thank you so much, Killgore. That means a lot to me," Jenny replied.

As they finally crossed the threshold of the entrance, Killgore said "Okay then. We need to keep heading straight through the big holes in those two walls, and then we need to make a right. Then there will be a doorway on the floor leading underground."

They saw many bodies lying around on the floor as they made their way through the rooms. As they made it to the room with the door, they all split up immediately once they saw something barely visible heading in their direction at high speed.

When they all landed, Jenny then said "You must be Sting Chameleon. I've been waiting for this."

A couple of seconds later, S. Chameleon finally showed himself.

Deactivating his cloaking technology, he looked at Jenny, and then said "I'm surprised that you guessed correctly that quickly. Did your mom invent a detector designed for me by any chance?"

He was clinging to the side of a wall as if he was a spider.

"No, but the fact that I didn't see the projectiles nor what they originated from told the story," Jenny answered.

"Common sense is something that, if you live long enough, you'll discover is actually not quite so common. Then again; you were informed about me and my abilities by either X or Zero," S. Chameleon explained.

"I didn't know heartless murderous monsters like yourself conversed with their targets so calmly," Jenny pointed out angrily.

"A monster. I suppose I am," S. Chameleon commented.

"What do you mean you suppose? It's obvious," Sheldon said.

"I did kill most of those humans in that subway, and yes, I did come up with that plan to have those other humans kidnap XJ9 and whoever else might decide to help her. I'm guilty, but oddly enough, such things are not really me style. I did those things because that is what my master ordered me to do. He told me to kill those people to excite emotions of sadness and anger, and to trigger thoughts of revenge. He also told me to think of something particularly underhanded, i.e. the kidnapping, and I obeyed him. I didn't really want to handle things in such barbarous ways, but he is my master," S. Chameleon explained.

Angrily, Jenny asked "What the hell? So this was all just bait? Of all the…well I can say this, he's getting what he asked for."

"Not in the way your thinking. He was kind of hoping that you would recklessly charge this fortress on your own in an angry rage. That plan did not work out. You kept your cool and stuck to the plans your comrades set. But I digress. I don't know why my master is using such tactics if he's planning to create a wonderful new world. What he made me do didn't seem so wonderful," S. Chameleon replied.

"How is attacking us now any more wonderful?" Jenny asked.

"Umm…I can't say that it is. I look at you, and I see a great addition to our wonderful new world. If you're angry and saddened, how would you enjoy being a part of it, well…if Sigma allows you to be a part of it. Unfortunately, my orders are to destroy anyone who isn't already on our side that tries to make it through that door. And by the way, Killgore, betraying us was not a good idea," S. Chameleon said.

"I'm guessing your orders were also to stall for time. If you're so damned loyal to Sigma, you would've kept attacking us instead of taking the time out to chat," Jenny pointed out.

As S. Chameleon reactivated his cloaking, he said "Looks like you found me out. You're really smart."

"Before we begin, you should know that I don't think of you as a heartless monster anymore. I now think of you as a confused tool," Jenny commented.

"I am a tool for my master, but I am not confused," S. Chameleon said before he began jumping around the room rapidly.

Each of the others stood their ground waiting for the best time to attack. Chameleon was only slightly visible because the speed that he was moving was just a little faster than his cloaking device's adaptation ability, but the actual visibility time was very limited.

Sheldon fired an energy wave at the ceiling where it seemed as though Chameleon was landing. He barely missed, but the explosion did cause Chameleon to fall to the floor. In that moment, Jenny extended her right arm and grabbed what she believed was his right forearm and pulled him close to her. With her left arm, she knocked him towards Killgore with the back of her fist.

Killgore grinned and then uppercutted Chameleon straight up into the air. Chameleon extended his tail, stabbed it into the ceiling above, and then pulled himself strait upwards.

"We are not amateurs. You might hold the advantage against one of us, but the three of us will make quick work of you if you don't come up with a better strategy," Killgore said confidently.

"Here's a better strategy for you," S. Chameleon said.

A large green blob formed from inside the ventilation shaft in the ceiling beside Chameleon, and the formed into a large green reploid.

"That would be Acid Seahorse. Be very careful against him," Killgore explained.

"Let's just see how strong his acid is," Jenny said as she pointed her J-Buster at Seahorse, and then fired it at him.

"Foolish," A. Seahorse said calmly as he reverted to his liquid state and then burst apart into five different blobs.

What he didn't expect, was Jenny's next move. She extended both of her arms and her hands transformed into spherical containers. She grabbed two of the blobs and retracted her arms. This shocked everyone else. The three remaining blobs retreated and formed a much smaller version of Seahorse.

He then yelled, "Why isn't my acid working?"

"It's as I thought. Your acid just isn't strong enough for me. I was already designed for high acid resistance as it is for when I need to bathe, but my upgrade made my resistance even stronger. I'm not stupid though. If your acid was strong enough, I would've detached those hands and let them melt," Jenny replied.

She then began burning the contained acid.

Acting quickly, A. Seahorse yelled "Disconnect."

He disconnected the signal, but the time it took him to do so made it possible for Killgore to blast him with a laser burst, and he did just that. As Seahorse disintegrated, two spikes headed straight for Killgore's head. Sheldon grabbed them and threw them back at Chameleon so fast that they pinned him to the ceiling.

Jenny then used the heat energy created from burning the acid, plus a little extra, and shot it at Chameleon. His scream could be heard from inside the explosion. When the smoke cleared, they saw a mostly ruined motionless body pinned in place.

Suddenly, they all heard Zero's voice say "Looks like you guys didn't need me to beat those two."

"Why do they keep sending us these weaklings? They won't send us any of the stronger reploids. Sigma must be stalling for time like Jenny said," Killgore guessed.

"You were just working for Sigma, weren't you? How can you not know what his plans are?" Zero asked.

Killgore sighed and answered "I soon realized, more quickly than the others did, that Sigma didn't really care about us at all. I figured it out when he chose to reveal so many details to his reploid servants, and chose to reveal only a few to us. As far as helpful info is concerned, I only know a little more than you do, and that's not saying much at all."

They all looked up at Chameleon suddenly once they heard him whimpering.

"I can…barely…see. I don't…want to…die yet. I failed you…master. Please have mercy. Please don't…let me…die like this master. I want to see…your new world. I bet it's…beautiful," S. Chameleon said as he started crying.

Instinctively, in a surge of emotion, Jenny pointed her buster at him and said "I can't let him suffer like that!"

Killgore then grabbed her buster, lowered her arm forcefully, and then said "Don't do it!"

Before she could protest, S. Chameleon continued saying "You were wrong master. I knew it…all along…but I didn't…I was afraid to admit it. They do have a right to life. You have…forsaken…your heart…"

A moment of silence passed as they were sure that he was dead this time.

"Don't look at me that way, XJ9. Your instinctive motivation for ending his life was because you feel uncomfortable watching people suffer, not because you were trying to spare him. There was nothing good that could've come from destroying him. His time was already almost up. Plus, I know him. He's probably the least bad guy, at heart, in Sigma's army. He needed the time to come to terms with his mistakes. He did just that," Killgore explained.

Reluctantly, Jenny said "Okay."

"Do you know where X is, Zero?" Sheldon asked.

"He's tied up at the moment. Anyway, we need to keep moving. We don't know how long it'll be before Sigma makes his big move," Zero replied.

* * *

Grace was still wandering around in the snow looking for survivors, particularly anyone who was able to fight. She was still in her transformed state, otherwise she would freeze.

She eventually found a group of humans with the same idea in mind. Two of them were carrying an injured XJ3 around. She met up with them and asked was XJ3 okay as she is. They told her that XJ3 was unconscious, but it was obvious that her auto-repair was doing its job, so they decided to protect her.

Before Grace separated from the group to continue her search, a small group of mechaniloids surprise attacked the group. One of the soldiers was hit, and Grace also took some minor damage just before she destroyed them.

She removed the bullet from the soldiers shoulder, and with her limited medical knowledge, she stitched up the hole with some thread she removed from one of their uniforms. It was no hospital level treatment, but it would hold for a while.

When she continued her search, she saw what looked like a reploid with a mound of snow covering him or her. She ran over to the mound and began removing the snow.

Once she realized who it was, Angel sighed and said "You really are a miserable fuck; you know that?"

X remained motionless and unresponsive with his eyes barely opened.

"Are you really planning on sitting here and letting your friends die?" Angel asked.

Only a little louder than a whisper, X asked "Are you saying they're not your friends?"

"No; they're not. My only friend is Grace," Angel answered.

"You said that so straightforward. You really must mean that," X said without changing his tone.

"Of course I do. I'm risking my own ass for them because Grace asked me to. I bet that makes you mad, doesn't it? Oh, wait, I'm wrong aren't I? You don't seem to have a problem with that. I think they should find a way to take care of themselves, and judging by the way you're sitting on your ass wallowing in your own sad ass unfulfilled ambition bullshit, I think you agree with me," Angel said.

X's eye glowed white with anger and he jumped and landed and uppercut under her jaw. She staggered backwards and fell to the ground.

A few seconds later, she began laughing like a maniac. X growled in response.

As soon as Angel stopped laughing, she said "You really are fucked up. I didn't think the boy-scout hero would ever dream of hitting a woman like that."

With a growl in his voice, X said "I will if I have to, but in your case, you chose the worst time to provoke me. You and Grace both have a terrible knack for bringing the worst out of people with your words. I no longer have a problem with Grace. My problem is with you now, Angel. You talk about me not helping them out, but then you only do it because you're following her orders. I didn't join the Maverick Hunters to follow orders. I did it because I wanted to help people."

"Help people? HA! My ass. You call killing all those Mavericks in your career helping? That's such utter B.S. So you can kill them simply because they feel the opposite way that you do? So they have to die because they're trying to kill people that you're trying to save? That's selectively helping people. That's deciding who deserves to live or die. If you want to help, help everybody, including Mavericks," Angel suggested.

"How can I help them when I'm struggling to defend myself against a ruthless onslaught? They rarely listen to reason. And what did you mean when you said that's deciding who deserves to live or die? " X asked.

Grace then spoke up saying "I don't even know…why I'm out here. What's the point? What is really being…gained by protecting these…people at the cost of killing…the Mavericks? Death is…still being spread either…way you handle the situation. If the…people who live in this…world now are killed by the Mavericks, the Mavericks…will then build more Mavericks in their new…world. If…we kill the Mavericks, life will still remain. And who…deserves the life that they have. All people…do terrible things in their lifetime, even if those terrible things don't…involve victimizing other people. We don't…really appreciate our…own lives. We don't take…care of ourselves…properly. We think…terrible thoughts about others…that we can't get along with, etc. Those things are bigger…than people give them…credit for. Just because someone…is not being raped, stolen from, or killed does not make…those other crimes much less terrible. Those smaller things often…pave the way for the larger…crimes. If we don't really deserve…the lives that we have, then how can…any of us claim to decide who…else deserves to…live or not?" Grace asked.

"Are you trying to tell me that we should just let them run over us? X yelled.

Grace turned her head towards X, looked him directly in his eyes, and then replied in a very unsure tone "I actually don't…know. My heart tells me…that I'm doing something…righteous by protecting these people, but I…wonder if it is a good…thing to protect so many trifling ungrateful people. I'm one of them. I can't deny my faults. I know you are also guilty of many wrongs that weren't considered crimes worthy of immediate punishment. No one who has what we consider to be an intelligent mind has a spotless record. Who has the right to decide who deserves what? Who has that right?"

A moment later, X asked "What are you getting at?"

"Just…this. Look around…you one day when you…have free time. I mean…really look, and then ask yourself; if I can't even…fathom how all this was…made possible, how can I honestly say that I understand…the rules on who deserves…what the deserve? If you think about it, claiming to know the…answer to that is extremely…bold and…big-headed. Everyone seems to think they…have the answer to…that. We are…talking about what…people deserve. How can there be…more than one opinion? If everybody…can decide, then everyone has…supreme authority, and that makes…no sense. That sounds like a…pride issue to…me. Since when…did we all…become gods? I tell you I…get sick of hearing people…say what someone deserves. Did these people…ever attend some conference…on who gets to decide? Did they ever conduct an…extensive research study…to arrive at the ultimate…conclusion…logically?" Grace asked.

A few seconds later, X asked "What about you, Angel?"

"I agree with her totally, and not just because she's my master," Angel answered.

"You two really are something else. I've never once heard anybody make a point like that before. Well then, I guess there's no good reason to help anybody. Maybe I should just crawl in a hole somewhere and become a hermit," X said plainly and monotone.

"I was serious when I said that I believe people should learn to take care of themselves, but I don't think they should all die. They're not my friends, but death is too harsh. There has to be something better, a bigger reason to fight than what we've been fighting for. It has to amount to something in the end. It doesn't make sense until you consider this. The logic that nature should just take its course only applies to a universe that is totally random, that everything that happens is mere coincidence. How can that be? Coincidence describes a situation that happens randomly, without a reason, without a purpose. If that also describes this reality, then how can anything ever be predictable? How can one experience in life ever help us later? Why isn't the very physical make-up of the universe constantly in chaos? In our world, there was a scientist named Albert Einstein. He was considered to be one of the most intelligent men who ever lived. He even developed the theory of general relativity. All of that is interesting, but there was one thing he said that stuck with me most of my life. He basically said that the fact that this universe makes sense doesn't make sense. I didn't get that crazy shit at first, but later, it hit me. It shouldn't have made sense if it was responsible for its own creation. It should have been chaotic and random. Do you see where I'm going with this?" Angel said.

Wide-eyed, X replied "Zero was just talking about something like that. You really think there is an invented purpose: a design?"

"I don't know much about it, but all this does seem to point to a creator: a God if you will," Angel answered.

"Angel. Grace. I think we've spent too much time hangin' around here. I don't know if they deserve to die or not, but there is something inside of me…something in my conscious: in my heart…I can't just sit here and let them die. I don't even know why I'm bothering to continue. I'll just figure that out as I fight. I'll find a reason," X said.

"All righty then. Let's go. In fact, it'll be faster if I flew you there," Angel suggested.

"Oookay. I guess that'll work," X said surprised.


	40. Chapter 40

As both X and Grace approached the entrance, the saw High-Max in the distance pointing up at them.

"I'm surprised that overgrown bitch is still alive," Angel commented.

"He was tough last time, and he's even tougher this time. He's even repaired that hole in his chest so quickly. Looks like we need to finish what we started," X explained.

High-Max gave them time to land and get into a fighting stance.

"I never would've guessed that The Red Angel was powerful enough to damage me that much, especially not with a single blow. You really should've made a better effort to destroy me while you still had the chance. Now we're back to square one. Zero is not here to help you this time either," High-Max explained.

"That's true; he's not here to help us. It's not like that's gonna matter. I have a pretty good idea what it's gonna take to defeat you after fighting you the first time," Angel said.

High-Max pointed his open hand at X suddenly, it glowed bright white, and X found himself being pushed backwards at high speed. Grace then stretched her left arm, grabbed around High-Max's right knee, and began pulling on him. Despite his size, High-Max had actually been tripped up, to his surprise. Now lying on his back, both Grace, and a fully recovered X were dropping down on top of him from the air. X had also transformed into his X-Hyper armor in mid leap.

He pointed at X to try to fire at him again, but to his surprise, Angel knocked his hand to the side with another arm extension. This allowed X to grab High-Max's face with the claw at the end of his buster. He immediately began firing large amounts of electricity bursts directly into his face.

Grace charged a large amount of heat energy at the ends of her fists and began punching High-Max's chest wildly. They both jumped off of him the moment they noticed his body glowing. High-Max then jumped to his feet.

His face half melted, High-Max yelled "I will defeat you two."

"I can't believe you tried that same shit again. You're tough, but you're predictable," Angel commented.

"Why now? Sorry, but we can't continue just yet," High-Max said.

"What," X said as they saw High-Max take off flying into the fortress.

They began chasing after him. About a minute into the chase, and they found themselves in a pitch dark room. Grace flared up her entire body to light up the room. By the time they could see the room, High-Max was nowhere to be seen, nor was there any way to tell where he went.

"Well, all we can do now is keep moving. One more thing before we go. I'm sorry for hitting you like that earlier. I was out of line," X said.

Grace nodded, and they both started moving again.

* * *

As Jenny and her team made their way through the many passageways, they encountered many enemies and traps. They all had begun to think that this was becoming easier as they moved on. Neither of them thought of letting their guards down though. Zero's black armor helped out quite a lot.

They finally met up with a large group of soldiers.

When they all landed, Jenny said "First of all, don't mind Killgore. He's agreed to fight on our side. I'm assuming you're all standing here because of this huge door."

"Right. Killgore's suddenly on our side now. That's hard for me to swallow so easily, but since you don't look worried, I'll just ignore it. And yes, we can't get through this damned blast door. I'm assuming it's one of those one's strong enough withstand a nuclear blast. How exactly are we getting through it?" one of the soldiers asked.

"If we don't have a security code to unlock the door, we'll have to force our way through. I know, a nuclear blast, but that's a bomb. A high intensity laser will cut through the door," Killgore explained.

"I'll give it a try to gauge how much firepower will be needed. You guys might wanna move away from the door first," Zero volunteered.

The others did as they were told so as not to be killed by whatever attack he was planning to use. He first slashed the door with his saber a few times barely making a scratch. He then tried charging a lot of power into the saber, jumping backwards, and then dashing forward at the door attempting to stab a hole in the door. With the explosion cleared, all that he managed to do was make a small dent.

"This is gonna require a lot of power indeed. Do those laser rifles of yours have beam fire functionality?" Zero asked.

"We tried that already, and we didn't get nearly as far as you did," another soldier answered.

"That's fine. What we all need to do is fire a thin continuous beam at one general area of the door until the metal melts," Zero explained.

"You must've done something like this before," One of the soldiers asked as everyone began moving into position.

Once everyone got into their positions, Killgore said "You don't have to trust the words of a former enemy to know that I'm telling the truth when I say that as soon as we make this hole, something is likely going to jump out at us in a murderous fury."

"Yes. He's right all right. We need to be on guard," another soldier said.

"Is everybody ready?" Jenny asked.

A moment later, one of the soldiers said "On my mark. Three...two…one…fire!"

The all fired at once. They kept the stream going for about two minutes before someone had a concern.

"I don't know for sure how much longer our weapons can keep this up without overheating," the soldier yelled to insure everyone heard it over the noise the lasers were making.

"We need to keep this up for about another twenty seconds, "Zero yelled.

When the final second passed, Zero yelled "All right, everyone; stop now!"

They all did as he commanded. His entire body then glowed bright blue. He fired a stream of ice energy at the red hot spot of the door. He stopped the stream about ten seconds later, and he then fired an energy ball at the spot, shattering it all to pieces. A huge hole was now in the door large enough to easily fit through.

A few seconds later, Killgore said "Isn't that a surprise. I guess I guessed wrong. Nothing came out charging at us."

"What is Sigma stalling for? Does he really expect us to make it all the way to the final room…like on some kind of video game or something?" Jenny asked frustrated.

Zero burst into laughter at Jenny's question.

He then said "You don't know how long I've been waiting for somebody to point that out. The final boss in the last room of the fortress; that's definitely his style, though I don't think he's thinking about video games or comic books. He's way too serious for that."

"Shit just keeps getting stranger and stranger," another soldier said followed by a giggle that he tried to hold in.

* * *

XJ7 was protecting a severely wounded male soldier. He was missing two fingers on his right hand, he was holding onto a wound on his side that was bleeding out, and wound on the side of his head that looked as if a laser scraped his skin and some of his flesh off. Whatever hit him, it was powerful enough to break through his helmet and his flesh in one shot.

XJ7 rested his back against the large snow/ice mound. She would look over the mound from time to time to check for possible oncoming enemies. The entire time, she felt the urge to cry because of how much pain the man was in, but she didn't, for fear that doing so might distract her.

"Please miss! I'm just one man. I'm sure…there…are plenty of other soldier out there…in need of help. No! You need…to help your…sister Jenny…fight Sigma. If he wins…" he struggled to say.

In a very distressed tone, XJ7 cut him off saying "But I can't…just let you die here, not like this."

He let out a heart wrenching groan that made XJ7 yell "Please don't die on me!"

"You're not doing a good job…of protecting me when you're so…loud," he responded.

"Oh shit!" XJ7 said in a sudden harsh whisper.

"It's so funny. Your voice; my old girlfriend…sounded very much like you," he said followed by a strained laugh.

His comment made her blush the hardest that she's ever blushed in her life. She then heard a slight noise in the distance, and she immediately jumped up and looked over the mound only to see no sign of an enemy.

When she returned her attention to the man, he looked up at her and said "You're the one…that people say has a self-esteem problem. That used to be my story. I'm not a robot, but I know how you feel; every day of your life…thinking that you're worthless…or that you'll never measure up. It's a lonely and neglected feeling. Please! Take my advice…for your sake. Find what good can come from your existence, and use it…or you'll always be sooooo miserable. Do you want to die feeling that you were put here for nothing?"

He continued staring at her as she started crying, one eye normal and the other covered in blood.

A moment later, he looked up into the air and said "Dear Heavenly Father; I don't know if I will live to see another day…but I just want you to know that I…I love you…and I thank you for everything you've done for me. You helped see that my…life is worth living. I'm sorry for all the wrongs I've committed. And Lord; I don't know why you put them here, but please show XJ7 and her sisters, and any other living beings that we don't really understand, that you have a purpose for them, that their lives are not…in vain…amen."

By the end of his prayer, his voice had become quiet as his vision blurred. XJ7 could see that he was about to pass out, but she couldn't tell if he was going to die or not.

The moment his eyes closed, and his head slumped, she ran over to him and shook him a few times yelling frantically "No no no! Please don't die on me! Please don't!"

She looked around to see if anyone was coming, but she saw no one. She just then remembered to check for a pulse. She didn't feel one. She then touched his chest and sent a small electric charge into his body attempted to revive him. After four tries, she finally felt a pulse. Relieved, she heated up her body and hugged him to keep him warm.

About a minute later, a group of soldiers came running over to them with supplies in their hands. They were shocked to see XJ7 crying so hard hugging that man.

XJ7 then yelled "Please do something! He has a pulse, but it's so weak! You have to do something!"

One of the soldiers then said "Quick! Give him to us. Somebody, hurry and put him on a stretcher!"

They quickly put his body on the stretcher and hooked up his body to some equipment.

As they began carrying him away, one of the soldiers stopped, looked at XJ7, and then said "Thank you for helping him survive. I'll see to it that he gets the care he needs, but I'm sure you already know that in his condition, he might not make it. He's lost a lot of blood, and it's freezing out here. I'll let you know later if you're alive to receive the update on his health. Please, be careful out there."

The soldier then ran to catch up with his comrades. XJ7 sat there for a few moments contemplating the event, and then she finally turned towards Sigma's base and took of flying in its direction.

* * *

XJ5 managed to catch up with X and Grace. They all simply followed the same path everyone else followed that was indicated by the visible destruction. As they traveled, X thought about the way the body of Sting Chameleon looked as it was pinned to the ceiling. He could tell by the expression on his face that he suffered.

XJ5 finally spoke up saying "I thought…based on what Sigma's men were saying, that their force was much larger than what we've seen so far."

"That is a good point," Angel added.

"There force was really large, but what you guys didn't see, was just how far the battlefield stretched. They shipped us, the strongest fighters, in that massive airship to get us closer to the central base. Not only that, you only saw one side of the base. Fighting was taking place on the other side. Back home, the Mavericks never launched an all out attack before with a large force, so they would usually only send any amount from one to about three or four Hunters on a mission at a time. High-level Hunters like Zero and I are usually sent in alone. The only reason you haven't seen most of their force is because most of them aren't in here. Only problem is, if your forces fail any time soon, the Mavericks will surely return here to protect their master," X explained.

"And that wouldn't be good for us," XJ5 said.

"No, it wouldn't. I have confidence in your forces though for handling the battle reploids. What I'm worried the most about is Sigma obviously, possible high-performance mechaniloids, and possible other high-performance reploids like High-Max," X said.

"If you're worried, I should be worried too," XJ5 added.

Suddenly, they all reacted to the sound of footsteps. They ran towards the sound battle ready. When they finally saw someone step out of the darkness, they realized who it was.

"My nerves are already bad enough. You're the last person I expected to see walking around by herself," Angel commented.

"I can take care of myself just fine," Cinnamon said.

"Believe it or not, but Cinnamon here is much stronger than you think. If she were to become a Hunter, she'd likely move up to a high rank much more quickly than most ever have. Right now, I'd class her as an A-Ranked fighter. She doesn't spend all her time on missions, so she lacks that experience, but don't underestimate her strength because she has that cute innocent look," X explained.

"That's a good thing. If she was a weakling, I'd be wondering how she made it this far into the base. Hey wait, if you're ranking people, what would you class me as?" Angel asked.

"Strength wise, based on what I've seen, I'd class you as S-Rank. Your overall fighting ability though; makes you a mid C-Rank. Hold on now, before you get upset, I'm judging based on your speed, skill, and experience as well. I'm using the same system that was used to judge me, so this is not solely my opinion," X replied.

"Hmph…makes me feel so average. When this is over, I plan on training quite a bit. Whatever. We need to keep moving," Angel said with a hint of disappointment.

As they began running again, Cinnamon said "In case you're wondering, I came in here to see if I could possibly help heal our comrades. I kind of didn't expect to run into you guys. Did something happen out there? I assumed you'd be closer to Sigma by now, X."

"Well, I did run into a complication, but I can continue now without that problem," X answered.

Cinnamon looked at X with a concerned expression, and then she said "I'm not going to try and force it out of you, but the way you answered, tells me that…"

Grace then cut her off by saying "We all would…be better off…not talking about it…right now."

"Fine then; I'll leave the issue alone for now," Cinnamon responded.

"We need to hurry. There's something big happening about a mile ahead," XJ5 said as she sped up.

Everyone else sped up once they heard what sounded like fighting going on ahead of them in another room. As they approached the doorway, they all ducked for cover when a large beam headed directly towards them from the next room. As soon as the beam passed over their bodies, they rose and ran into the room.

Though they finally met up with Jenny and the others, they had no time to greet each other. The entire room was a giant attack mechaniloid. Gun turrets were mounted into the walls and ceiling, mechanical arms protruded from the walls, and tiny eyes were installed all over the place to prevent anyone from hiding.

Those who were not yet used to this kind of thing thought of the situation as full-fledged chaos. X quickly realized that Zero hadn't done as much damage as he thought he would've considering the pattern the mechaniloid was following. He soon made eye contact with Zero, and as soon as Zero nodded his head, X knew what to do.

The problem is that the opening they have to perform their stunt with didn't allow them time to tell the others to leave, so they had to be precise. X's armor changed to purple and sky blue and he began absorbing energy. He kept dodging the mechaniloid's attacks until he finished charging enough energy. He met up with Zero in mid-air in the center of the room. When they released their energies they paused in mid-air. They both fired powerful lasers from all over their bodies in the directions of the weapons in the room. They managed to fire them just in time to avoid hitting their teammates. Everyone else stopped where they were and waited until the explosions cleared. As the smoke cleared, everyone's attention was on X and Zero.

"I hate doing that. That drained about a tenth of my power. Would've drained less if I had had time to activate an ultimate armor," X said as he began absorbing energy to recharge himself.

Zero also began recharging, and then he said "The way things were looking, we might not have had another opening like that any time soon. You were a little sloppy that time though. You almost hit XJ5."

"Thanks for pointing that out, old buddy," X said sarcastically.

"I'm getting the impression that if I wanna survive against Sigma, I'll have no choice but to use my enhancer," Jenny guessed.

"After seeing what they just did, I'd say your right," Killgore said.

"I'll say it like this. Knowing that he'll be up against all of us, and possibly then some, he will be prepared. I'll try to help you avoid a life ending attack if I can, but I can't make a guarantee. When we fight him, fight like a killer. He won't allow you the time to fight like a hero," Zero explained.

Suddenly, a loud rumbling occurred as a door opened slowly to the next room, and then Sigma's voice was heard coming from a microphone saying "Good advice Zero."

"You must be him," Jenny guessed confidently.

"Yes. I am the big…'bad guy' that everyone's been talking about. You really only guessed correctly because you heard my voice right after I was mentioned a moment ago. You really would've been better off taking Axel's advice and joined us. You made your choice and you will receive no mercy from me. As for the matter at hand, I welcome all of you to partake this feast of madness with me. A terrible and horrifying death awaits you all. Oh yes, and as for your betrayal, Killgore, I will present your corpse as an example to those who might try to dissent in the future," Sigma said before the microphone deactivated.

Killgore growled and said "I bet you can still hear me, and I hope you are listening. You wanted to build a utopia…my motha-fucking ass. You told us all that this was a choice that we had the liberty to make. I somehow already knew it was bullshit. Whether it's me that delivers the final blow, or someone else, I want to see your charred remains when you get what's coming to you. I hate to tell you this, everybody, but all the other villains are probably already dead."

With a look of hatred on her face, Jenny said "That…would explain why they haven't fought us yet. I fucking hope it's not true. I killed The Lancer, but I regret it. I never wanted to, and I don't wanna see the others die either. I don't even wanna see Sigma die…I hate this game."

"Yeah. No one is forced to follow the rules in this game. Chess or checkers or…some video game sounds better right now," Cinnamon said.

Both XJs 6 and 7 showed up as they all started walking towards the next room.

"In a video game, nobody dies for real. Sounds like a better deal to me," XJ5 added.


	41. Chapter 41

Misty found herself once again in a familiar situation. She stood frozen in place with fear as a gun barrel was pressed against the back of her head. This time, it was the huge panda reploid Bamboo Pandamonium. The gun barrel covered the entire rear of Misty's skull.

On top of this, their were also two soldier reploids pointing their guns at her frontside standing about ten feet away from her.

Bamboo was not known for smiling or changing his expression much at all, and being usually mostly monotone would often disturb his teammates. Misty noticed how his expression hadn't changed the entire fight. He had yet to speak to her either. He continued staring down at her and observed how frightened she was.

"I know this is an awkward time for this, but…I don't understand why anyone would go out of their way to risk themselves for a race of people who are different from your own," Bamboo said.

In the midst of heavy breathing, Misty yelled "Now you speak! Oh my God! You…you're one of the…scariest mother fuckers I've ever fought."

"I learned my mistake from the last time. Talking too much will likely get you killed in the middle of a fight, but were not fighting now. This is a standoff," Bamboo explained.

"He does make an excellent point. You don't know these people. You don't have a good relationship with them. Besides all that thought, why would you risk your life for these vermin?" One of the other reploids asked.

A moment later, Misty replied "The thing is…I don't have a real clue as to…what the hell I'm doing this for. Up until a few months ago, I thought I knew what life was. I thought I knew who I was. Maybe…I just…maybe I just don't want to see these people slaughtered. Maybe I'm afraid of seeing these people die like I had to witness so many of mine recently."

"I didn't know someone attack them. I heard the people of your world are very strong. I didn't think anyone was strong enough to overwhelm them that way," Bamboo said a little surprised.

"How did you…oh, fuck Sigma. He plans on spreading his BS all over the universe, doesn't he?" Misty asked angrily.

"Not that it'll concern you for much longer, but yes," Bamboo answered.

Misty laughed a little, and then said "That's one of the biggest reasons why I left my home in the first place years ago. You people want an entire universe filled with nothing but reploids. I love my people dearly, but I wouldn't want an entire universe filled with only them. It would be boring. Yeah, you guys can build new reploids that look like anything you want them to, but you'll all have the same view point, all the time, forever and ever. Last time I checked, the same old same old gets boring after a while."

Bamboo's usually solid black eyes began glowing white in the centers in reaction to her words. Misty also noticed that all of them reacted pretty harshly to her words.

"I never gave that any consideration before. I guess we'll just have to find a way to keep it interesting," The third reploid said.

"You guys are thinking too small. All you know is each other, and the humans you delt with. Let's put it like this. If you enter the woods initially knowing your way back out, or your way out the other end, and leave in a short amount of time, you have a better chance of making it out. If you stay for too long, you'll probably forget the ways out. But then there's the reality factors. Let's say that by the time you decided to leave, new trees have grown over the exits, you'll likely have a much more difficult time getting out. In short, you guys have spent too much time dwelling into your own nonsense and your own people, and now you're lost in the woods you set up around your minds. You've become blinded to what takes place outside those woods. It's all you know, including that plan of yours," Misty explained.

By now, she could see the frustration in the reploids' faces. Without warning, Bamboo looked at the other two reploids, and a rumbling was felt under their feet. Suddenly two pillars that looked like metallic bamboo tree stalks erupted from under the ground sending them flying into the air. Not giving them any time to react, two green missiles formed in the middle of the air and flew after the other two reploids and destroyed them. Misty was then pushed forward, but without warning, and she fell to the ground.

She then turned to look up at Bamboo surprised, and then said "I didn't know any of you could use materialization."

"We normally don't do that too much, because it's very energy demanding. That is, of course, the ones that were designed that way. Listen to me, don't waste your time wondering why I spared you. I'm leaving this place, and don't follow me. You'd be better off leaving here to go help your friends," Bamboo said and then leaped up and over a huge snow covered mound.

Misty kept listening until she could no longer hear his presence.

"That was sudden. It is what it is, right? Funny how a few words can make somebody do something so drastic. Well, whatever," she said before taking off into the air.

* * *

As Misty approached the base, she had begun to have a bad feeling about the situation.

"It's as if there's some detail we're missing. I feel like I need to catch up with others right now," She thought to herself as she transformed into her mist form and made her way into the ventilation system.

* * *

As soon as she made it to room the others were in, she noticed that they were all looking directly at her.

As she landed returning to her solid form, Killgore said "Yes, we knew you were coming, but we didn't know when. That super strong blast door in front of us is keeping us from going through. We would've broken through in time, but Sigma told us to wait for you, and for that other guy to show up, and he'll let us in. Saves more of our strength."

"That is strange, but who's the other guy?" Misty asked.

"That other guy would be Axl. Sigma said he wanted his biggest enemies here all at once, but he didn't explain why he waited for you," XJ5 replied.

Sigma's voice was then heard through a hidden speaker saying "I'm not interested in the alien girl, I'm only interested in what she knows. Bamboo Pandemonium had you pinned, and then a few moments later, his signal vanished. Did a weakling such as you really manage kill Bamboo?"

"Yes, my 'weakness' caused his signal to vanish. All you get from me is a stupid answer for calling me a weakling. Oh yeah, and just so you know, I plan to pay you back for that humiliation, you deranged sick bastard. I know Sting Chameleon made that crap up, but you ordered it to be carried out," Misty replied.

"I already anticipated you'd be a smart-ass. I will find Bamboo myself after you're all dead. I hear running. Sounds like Axl's pattern. And here he is," Sigma said as they all saw Axl running into the room.

"Sounds like Sigma's been waiting for me. I gotta tell ya, Sigma, you hit a low worthy of a Nobel Prize, and not the peace prize. What you did to Misty and Jenny was downright dirty. Your standards have sunk like shit down a toilet bowl. It was so different from your usual tricks that I dare say you're not the Sigma we know," Axl said.

Suddenly, the door started opening slowly. They all then boosted their powers to max without transforming, those that could.

Without warning, Jenny said very harshly "This feeling just got a whole lot worse all of a sudden. You have to leave now Sheldon."

Sheldon then said "I can't do tha…"

Jenny cut him off by saying "NO…Sheldon. Listen to me. This isn't just the fact that I care for you. I'm sensing horrible evil emitting from Sigma. I wanna run too. I don't want the others to fight him either. Don't ask how I know you won't survive if you fight him. I just know. Run, and don't come back to fight him. Help as many allies out there as you can. I would give you a cliché hug like the movies before you go, but I'm not interested in hugging that Silver Shell. I'd rather hug you. Just run now…or I'll chase you out of here myself."

"Okay. Please come back to me alive," Sheldon said before taking off flying away through the halls.

Jenny's fists clenched tight until her armor began making a grinding sound, and then she said "This isn't a statement that a hero would make, but I have to say it. Show no mercy. Kill him as quickly as you can. None of us has a choice right now."

Everyone else saw how intense Jenny was looking, and they all took her advice. As the door finished opening, they all began cautiously entering the dark room. The only things that could be seen in the room were many very dim lights coming from machines.

They all soon made it to what seemed like the center of the room, when a whirring noise was heard right in front of them. When the noise stopped, the lights in the room suddenly turned on. Standing in front of them was…

"Vexus?" X asked surprised.

Vexus opened her eyes and then looked up at the group, and then she asked "Umm…where the fuck am I?"

It was obvious that she was totally clueless about the situation with the way she was looking around at everything.

"I remember fighting the Mavericks, and then…my clock says I've been offline for about thirty five minutes. Wait! I remember what just…," Vexus said followed by a feeling that caused her to start screaming.

Staring at Vexus in disbelief, Jenny said "You are a real fucking bastard, Sigma. You waited until was far enough underground, so I can't be warned by my mom, because the signal was blocked. You used this time to capture her and take control of her body."

Vexus then screamed in desperation "Please don't make me do this, Sigma. I don't want to attack them."

"Are you dense or something? You came here to help them kill me. You think I'm going to 'play fair.' There's nothing fair about war in the first place. You think it noble to help them, but you want to kill me to do it. That is not noble, and you know it. Killing never is. I shouldn't have to tell a former dictator this. You already know the rules of the game," Sigma replied through a speaker.

A moment later, her body straightened, and then she charged after Jenny head on. The group all dodged her first attack, and as they spread out, Jenny yelled "Come on. Someone please quickly come up with a way to stop her without killing her."

They kept dodging her attacks as they all pondered the situation. That's when XJ5 decided to fire a sound wave beam at Vexus's orb. It shattered almost instantly, but Vexus kept charging.

Sigma laughed and said "I'm not stupid. You're going to have to do better than that. I've done my homework on her."

"I know what he did…" Zero said as he turned his body to the side to avoid a downwards karate chop by Vexus's right hand with dark green energy surrounding her hand.

As Vexus continued punching and kicking, Zero explained "He managed to…damn she's fast…discover that she was vulnerable to my…Virus. He must've duplicated…it…somehow."

"And if you figured that out, you must also know that she won't stop until you all kill her," Sigma explained followed by a laugh.

"There's got to be a way around this," Jenny yelled.

"I can't wait to kill you for this, Sigma," Angel yelled.

"As Zero kept dodging, he looked at Vexus with a sad expression and said "You probably won't survive this. I hope you will forgive me if you don't."

"No, Zero. Whatever it is, don't do it," Jenny yelled angrily.

"Billions of lives are at stake. I can't…I think… understand now," Zero said just before jabbing a huge hole into her abdomen.

Zero released a large amount of red energy from his entire body and let it flow into her body. Vexus frozen for a moment began glowing red as well. A few seconds later, she placed her hands on top of his shoulders, leaned forward, and kissed him on his lips.

No one saw this until the light dissipated, and needless to say, everyone was shocked. The light in Vexus's eyes was now gone with tears rolling down her face.

As they both remained still as a statue, Jenny yelled in anguish "Please tell me she isn't dead. Oh God! This can't be happening. God, please tell me she isn't dead,"

A moment later, Zero broke out of his trance, and slowly lowered Vexus to the floor. He then slowly removed his hand from her body, and the stood up. Vexus was now on her knees with her head slumped forward and her arms lying on the floor.

Jenny then screamed with a trembling voice "You hear me, Sigma. You're not getting away with this shit. Show yourself."

They all then heard a faint constant "s" sound coming from Vexus.

The sound continued until Vexus finally said very weakly "Stop…screaming…so…loud. I'm…still alive. Sigma…lied. Virus…was not…the Zero…Virus. It…was the…Sigma Virus. Sigma's virus was…caused by Zero's…virus. I saw it…when Zero hit…me…when he put his virus…in me. A piece…of Zero's…lost…memory was revealed to…me. Sigma found Zero's capsule…a long time…ago. Zero…attacked in violent…rage…uncontrollably. He…killed all Sigma's…team. Sigma knocked…him out, but ended…up being infected…by Zero's virus…."

"I understand what you did now, Zero. You canceled out my Virus's with your own. That trick won't work with me since the bulk of my Virus is in me," Sigma explained.

"Now I see what happened. You were the one from my nightmare, Sigma. So then, you were infected by my Virus, and then you slowly managed to change my infection into a Virus of your own. I had a feeling of that, so I took a chance on it by the stunt I just pulled. That's why you became so evil. You got a taste of my power, and then you let that power go to your head," Zero guessed.

"By that time, it was my power. I grew so powerful, that I became aware of the true destiny of reploids," Sigma said proudly.

By this time, Vexus had regained some of the light in her eyes, and then she replied "The destiny…of reploids? You love repeating that nonsense…over and over again to…drill it into the psyches of your subjects, but all you want is…control. You want to reshape…reality as we know it into whatever you…see fit. I don't recall the hand of God reaching out…from heaven and handing that right…over to you. I see how futile…it was to try to do that myself, and you will find out soon yourself, the easy or the hard way."

"Say what you will, Vexus, but where you failed, I will succeed. As soon as you all are done, I'm waiting in the next room. Don't keep me waiting too long," Sigma replied.

"I'm so glad you're still alive, Vexus. We'll get him for you," Jenny said.

"I'm okay, but fighting is out of the question for me now. To tell you the truth, I'd rather Sigma reform. His power and his knowhow would be a great asset to us all. Such a waist," Vexus said.

Zero then knelt down and looked Vexus in her eyes, and then said "I'm guessing…you did that because you thought you were really going to die. Well…I didn't bother to explain before I did it, but if you were infected by my Virus, your chances of survival would've been next to none. Besides me, my virus is designed to kill the host if an attempt is made to remove it, hence the name, Zero. Sigma's virus is different from mine. If I had explained that before hand, you probably wouldn't have had the courage to let me know how you feel. Am I right?"

"Very much so. I was so scared to tell you before, that I don't know if I ever would've told you," Vexus replied.

"I can tell by your voice trembling so much. Listen to me, XJ7, I think you should hurry and get Vexus to safe place. This fight will be rough," Zero explained.

As soon as XJ7 cradled Vexus in her arms, Zero looked at Vexus and said "And Vexus, we'll talk about it when we're done handling this mess."

He turned around, activated his saber, pointed it at the next door, and then said "I'm getting tired of Sigma's treachery. It's time we end his reign of terror. If he insists on trying to slaughter us, then we will raise our swords and strike him down. Let's go everyone."

* * *

As they all entered the next room, they all saw Sigma standing in the rear of the rectangular room.

Jenny clenched her fists tight and said with a grin that revealed that she was obviously trying to hide her fear "It's about fucking time I get to see you in person."

"You look just as afraid as you did once you realized how powerful Armagedroid was the first time you fought him. Just so you know, I'm not going to ask you one final time to join me. That is too cliché, but I happen to know you would refuse me anyway. I'm not too stubborn to admit that you would've made fine additions to the new world I'll soon be building," Sigma replied.

"That's funny coming from the man who just made such vivid death threats a few minutes ago," Killgore pointed out.

Sigma grinned, and then replied "That was a good comeback. Before we begin, I want you all to know that whether I win…or you all win…the destruction of the world as you know it…is inevitable."

"What exactly do you mean?" Cinnamon asked.

"If you win, both your worlds' destruction will take longer, but how much? I've observed both worlds and have arrived at the same conclusion. Both your worlds are much more unstable than you realize. Compare it roughly to an aerosol can that will soon burst because you carelessly left it near an open flame. I'm not going to bother explaining it to you, but if you do kill me today, I want you to examine your reality from an alternate perspective to try to piece together this mystery. But we've wasted too much time already," Sigma said as he threw off his cape and activated his Saber.

"Let's go," X said.

XJ5 immediately tried to throw off Sigma's concentration, just as she briefed with the others earlier, by screaming as loud as she can. Her hyper-sonic sound waves reached levels that would crack human bones if she was floating right in front of him/her. As Sigma paused stunned for just a moment, the others charged him at full speed. Sigma swung his sword twice blocking five different attacks in effect knocking most of his opponents away. Cinnamon performed a feet-forward baseball slide between Sigma's legs and tripped him by grabbing his ankles along the way. She let go once he began spinning like a saw blade trying to cut her with his saber. She managed to dodge, but the blade did completely shatter her helmet.

After the fifth rotation, Sigma landed on his feet and lunged forward after XJ7. She rolled straight backwards fast enough to make loud screeches on the floor. Sigma suddenly stopped his chase by stabbing his sword into the floor. He then used the momentum to swing around the handle like a pole and kicked Zero out of the way. He activated his feet rockets and swung around kicking the others who tried to attack him out of the way. He then planted his feet suddenly, pulled his sword out of the floor, and swung it a couple of times attempting to hit Jenny. She dodged the swings barely and backed away.

As soon as the standoff began, Jenny yelled with a wide grin "Woooow! This guy is no joke. He's so skilled. In those few seconds, I experienced more high speed excitement than I ever have in my life. I didn't even have time to calculate the trajectory of his swings. I dodged purely on instinct."

"You really must not be used to this, then. I am somewhat flattered that I managed to get such a complement from you," Sigma replied.

Even though she was terrified, Jenny felt very excited all of a sudden. She giggled a little at his comment, and then opened her lips wide showing her teeth first, and then leaned forward suddenly, and fired a dark blue wide-beam laser from her mouth at a very high intensity.

This surprised everyone, including her sisters. Sigma dodged the attack completely…or so he thought. He jumped straight upwards and looked down where Jenny was. As she stopped firing and was closing her mouth, Sigma noticed that the laser was coming at him from below diagonally. He noticed because the intensity of the blue light was growing stronger around his body. By the time he noticed, it was too late for him to move out of the way.

They all saw him curl up into a ball at the last second. When the beam exploded, a smoke cloud formed. Without warning, many tiny dark blue energy balls flew in all directions around the room. Some had to dodge, and some had to knock them away. Soon, the entire room was enveloped in smoke. That's when the ventilation system activated and began sucking the smoke out of the room.

When the smoke finally cleared, Sigma finally landed on the ground surrounded in his force field.

"Why am I not damned surprised? We have yet another energy barrier to deal with," Jenny said as her right eye twitched.

When he deactivated the barrier, he took a step forward, and then looked down at his feet with surprise.

He then said "And here I thought I dodged the first half of your attack altogether. The armor on my feet is heated up red hot with cracks in it. How exactly did you managed to redirect your attack after I jumped?"

He looked behind himself to see what looked like a small floating mirror on the other end of the room.

He then looked back at Jenny and said "You little trickster."

"That…would be your fault for not noticing me detach that from my body while you were dealing with Cinnamon. I figured your sensors wouldn't detect it while you were spinning around like that," Jenny explained.

"I knew something was wrong with the way you were still smiling after you clearly saw me dodge. That was more clever than I ever gave you credit for," Sigma commented.

XJ5 then asked "Since when…?"

"Since twenty three minutes ago. I made it up after seeing my reflection on a surface and told my body to make the adjustments," Jenny explained.

"You're becoming more dangerous every day. Time to fight even harder," Sigma said as he reactivated his saber.


	42. Chapter 42

As Sheldon and Vexus were heading away from the battlefield, Silver Shell's sensors detected faint signals coming from outer space.

"Is an enemy approaching, Sheldon?" Vexus asked after hearing the beeping.

"I don't really know. All I really know is…that there's a lot of them. For some reason, they're requesting…my audience? What the hell?" Sheldon asked.

The both looked up and saw many small black dots zooming straight down at them at high speed. Sheldon knew he couldn't outrun them without risking hurting Vexus, so he slowed down and stopped.

With wide eyes, Vexus said surprised "I don't believe it. Please, land Sheldon."

Sheldon landed as she asked, and then the black dots became more visible as they now looked like robots.

They all slowly landed in front of Sheldon and Vexus and they all knelt down on one knee and bowed their heads.

"It really is a pleasure to see you again, our queen," The robot in front said.

Shocked, Sheldon said "Wow! This was unexpected."

"At ease, soldiers," Vexus commanded.

They all stood at gazed upon their queen with obvious giddiness in their eyes.

"My queen. News had finally reached us, a full one and two quarters Earth years after it happened. We know about your defeat at the hands of the one called XJ9, and we know about how your own daughter exiled you and is now the new queen of Cluster Prime. Even so, we pledge our loyalty to you. That is why we are here. What is it you would have us do, my queen?" The robot in front asked.

"Where do I begin? Okay. I want you all to know that I am NOT to have you fight against XJ9," Vexus declared.

Shocked, the robots gasped, and then one of the others said "But that is…please forgive me, your majesty. I am unsure about the events that have transpired since we heard the news, but I know you have good reason for not wanting to attack her."

In a soft, calm, and warm tone neither of her subjects have ever heard her talk to them in, Vexus said "Listen to me. I'm no longer interested in reclaiming my throne on Cluster Prime. I'm no longer interested in domination either. I know this is hard for you all to understand, but I'm no longer the queen I was. I'm starting a new life. I'm doing things differently now. With that said, neither of you have any obligation to serve me anymore. All of you are free to do as you wish."

The robot in front approached Vexus and asked with a slight tremble in his voice "Does this mean that you are on a quest to redefine yourself?"

Vexus nodded her head, held out her hand, and then said in the same calm tone "Don't be afraid, take my hand."

He slowly reached out, and hesitantly grabbed her hand.

She grasped his hand, held it tight, and then said "There was never a time any of you would dream of ever being able to touch me this way, or in any way for that matter. I can tell that's what you're thinking. It's written on your demeanor. I never even called you by your proper name. Before, you were always Captain Tlxs. You have a real name, and that is simply Tlxs. The same goes for you all. I no longer consider myself to be above you. I know it'll be difficult for you all to get used to, but from now on, we are equals."

A female member of the unit spoke up saying nervously "But ma'am, we don't know a life without servitude to you. How are we supposed to make it without your guidance?"

Vexus saw the desperation in their eyes, and then said "I feel so terrible for doing that to you. People who don't know how to live on their own judgment. I'm not sure what to do."

Tlxs then spoke up and said in a tone that sounded as if he was trying to keep himself from crying "You may no longer be a queen, but you are still our leader. That is all we know you as. We will follow you. I do not know what you are doing with your life right now, but please, let us help you reach your goal. We can do it together."

"Please, put me down Sheldon. I have regained enough energy to function," Vexus said.

Sheldon put her down carefully, and she noticed how the others couldn't stand to see her body in such condition. She walked over to Tlxs and wrapped her arms around him hugging him tight. She could feel how shocked and tense he was.

"You lived your entire lives not knowing how it is to have someone love you as a brother or a sister, or even a mother. All you know is your training, your missions, and my orders. You hardly even know each other. I had no right to rob you of a chance at knowing what it is to have a normal life. I'm deeply sorry for doing this to you all. I'll understand if you never forgive me," Vexus said.

As hardened as these soldiers were, they had never in their lives experienced such a gesture, and so…they could no longer hold it in. They all ran over to and hugged their leader crying like small children who never experienced the love of a mother.

Sheldon then thought to himself "_If the circumstances were different, I would likely have to fight them. Tuck was right. If robots like them can do that, why can't we? Is there actually something wrong with us_?"

That was when Sheldon really began to think deeply about the history of human affairs. That's when it hit him.

"_Holy shit! I really think there is something wrong with us. It's not just the circumstances we have to deal with that drives us to be so rotten. Do we have bad genes or something_? _It's probably something worse_," He thought to himself.

Vexus finally said "All right then, you convinced me. I will remain as your leader, but I ask that you please try to think of me as more of a friend than your ruler. That's why I hugged you. I don't want you to live out your entire lives feeling that sense of separation between us."

"Okay. I understand Commander. What of this enemy? We can't sit back and let whoever did this to you get away with this," Tlxs said.

"Don't worry about this matter. At my top strength, I could literally beat you with both hands tied behind my back. I have been upgraded recently, so I know this to be true. Knowing this, I also know you couldn't beat him if you tried. Many others are trying to deal with this themselves. They have a much better chance of winning than all of you combined. Please promise me none of you will fight the one called Sigma unless he comes chasing after you himself. I don't want to lose any of you when you just arrived here," Vexus pleaded.

"We will take that plea as if it were an order. But if the situation is really that dire, then we should leave this planet," one of the others suggested.

"I can't leave. All of that suffering I caused finally caught up with me. I am in this planet's custody. There is a failsafe programmed into me that will render me immobile if I elevate higher than 100 miles from the Earth's surface intentionally or not," Vexus explained.

"Even I didn't know that," Sheldon said surprised.

"Even so. I don't have a problem with that. I intend to do anything I can to show these people that I really do intend to make up for what I took from them. Besides, I'm actually starting to like this planet and its people," Vexus explained.

"Well then, if you can learn to like flesh beings, then we ought to be able to as well," Tlxs said.

* * *

Sigma was actually becoming frustrated. He saw that this battle was going nowhere. He realized that his opponents were so afraid of death that they're spending most of their time dodging every attack. He was glad, however, that he hadn't received any more damage than when Jenny used her mirror trick.

"You people are going to have to actually risk yourselves if you hope to actually hurt me. Or maybe, the ones who can should just go ahead and transform. I know you're planning on saving your energy in case I have a trick up my sleeve as well," Sigma pointed out.

"Sigma! Why don't YOU go ahead and transform? You always have a second form for us to fight. Do you really feel it necessary to wait until your first body is destroyed to use your trump card every time? Every one of us knows about it, except maybe Killgore, and I'm pretty sure everyone else in here is wondering why you're dragging this out," X yelled.

"Hmm…well actually, I was hoping I wouldn't actually have to use it on you. It really is a hassle to go through with it. Only…I'm not stupid. I know each one of you is plotting some heinous trick the moment I start it. Knowing this…it's time I use a heinous trick of my own," Sigma replied.

As soon as he finished the sentence, a large portion of the ceiling came crashing in from above. That's when they noticed and all too familiar reploid beginning his all out rampage. They knew it was High-Max, even through the smoke and dust cloud.

"Anyone else think Sigma is showing signs of desperation?" Angel yelled.

"It's time we finish this weakling off. Sigma is much tougher than this guy," Misty yelled.

High-Max's entire body was glowing bright white as he charged after the nearest person he could find in a psychotic primal rage. Everyone else who could also started glowing as they charged High-Max head on. If you were a spectator, you wouldn't be able to tell who was winning through the smoke cloud. The only thing visible through the cloud was bright flashing lights and explosions.

That was when two more people entered the fray. The others knew it, but they didn't have time to see who it was. A few moments later, the fighting finally stopped. As the smoke was finally clearing, the others could see that both Melody and XJ6 had joined in the fight. They all then stared at High-Max standing in the middle, who was motionless. Long streams of sparks were jetting out of the huge gashes and holes in his body.

I think it's time we go and chase after Sigma," XJ6 said.

They all nodded their heads and took off flying straight upwards leaving High-Max behind. His body then slowly fell apart finally leaving a pile on the floor.

* * *

The team finally made it to a surprisingly small room. Nothing important seemed to be in the room at all…

"But this seems like a dead end," Angel said.

They all walked towards the middle of the room, and as soon as the last person in the rear had both feet planted on the huge circle in the middle of the floor, they realized they had stepped on a platform of some kind because it started rising at dangerously high speeds. The G-force they were experiencing was incredible. Doors kept opening above them allowing the platform to rise unhindered.

They all stared upwards into the dark vertical tunnel waiting for something sudden to happen. After a short moment, they all noticed Jenny become frightened by something.

"Fuck all this waiting. Now is the time. Transform now" Jenny yelled frantically as she began glowing bright yellow.

The glowing became brighter and brighter, until they were all enveloped in the light.

* * *

From the surface, people from all around the area could see an enormous explosion coming from the top of a tower in the distance. Following that explosion, they could also see many small bright lights spreading away from each other, but only a short distance.

* * *

The team was in the middle of their transformations, except for Killgore whom was merely powering up. Neither of them could see each other through the bright glows surrounding their bodies.

"It's great that you noticed those bombs planted at the top of that tower, Jenny. Sigma almost handed our asses to us with that one," Zero commented.

"Yeah. He almost did," Jenny said as her glow started to diminish. One by one, the others finished their transformations before Jenny. A moment later, Jenny's glow finally disappeared.

"I've been waiting to see the grand unveiling," X said as she observed Jenny's new appearance.

She turned and looked at him, and said with a grin "Grand unveiling? That's a bit much for a compliment, don't you think? And what do we have here?" Jenny asked as she observed X's new appearance.

"It's the first in my series of ultimate armors. It's actually been a few years since I've needed to use it.

His ultimate armor made his body about as bulky as his X-Fire armor. This armor, unlike the X-Fire armor, was mostly different shades of dark blue and purple with some golden colored parts. His buster also looked quite different.

"I see you haven't decided to go all the way yet," X said looking at Zero who returned to his black armor.

"I need to see how strong Sigma's new body is gonna be first before I go using that risky transformation," Zero replied.

"Speaking of which, where is that big bald bastard anyway?" Melody asked.

The ground below them finally started rumbling.

"Does that answer your question?" Killgore asked.

The rumbling then became much more fierce as they all saw a huge half mile long fault form in the ice below.

"That can't be good for any of us. Listen to me Grace, I don't want to die here, but if you insist on helping these people, I will fight until this is over," Angel yelled nervously.

Grace then replied saying "I know you're…afraid Angel, but you ought…to know…we'll have to fight him eventually. Even…with your help, we can't…breathe in outer space. Escape is not an option. We'd be…better off fighting…him as a team…now than…fleeing the scene. The more people fighting…him at once, the better. I'm sorry about putting you through this."

As the colossal machine came rising out of the ground, it caused an Earthquake that interrupted most of the fighting in the surrounding area. It looked like a mechanical monstrosity. A frightening version of Sigma's face was built into the front near the top. The face had all kinds of cables attached to it connecting to the body. The shape of the body was long and wormlike but with a rough surface, with smaller machines sticking out all over it. The color of most of the body was a nasty looking dark faded brownish green.

When he finally stopped rising upwards, it was easily noticeable that the lower portion of his body was still under the ground. Two huge arms then protruded from the area that looked like shoulders should be there.

He then said in a deep loud terrifying voice "This is probably the most frightening thing you've ever seen in your lives. To think that this grotesque body will be the last thing you see. All those years you worked to achieve your goals; ended here today, by a monster. Your final moments will be filled with despair. Prepare yourselves."

A very eerie high-pitched computer generated sound was heard coming from inside Sigma's body as his eyes lit up bright red. The lights from his eyes then began dimming and brightening at high speed in an alternating pattern. One eye would be bright while the other was dim when this happened.

The others then braced themselves for an attack. Sigma's mouth opened as wide as it could and fired a giant red fifteen feet wide laser. The others dodged surprisingly easily, and just when Jenny realized that the laser wasn't nearly powerful enough to destroy any of them, she found herself heading towards the ground so fast that everything below her seemed like a blur. Everything suddenly went dark and then her system diagnostics activated displaying a readout in the upper left corners of her eyes. As the light returned, she realized that Sigma had swatted her to the ground like a fly.

She then realized that Sigma intentionally used a not very concentrated laser on purpose to force her to dodge in a way that would allow him the first strike. When she determined that there was no serious damage, she jumped to her feet and looked straight up to see the others attack Sigma. She had the quick thought of drilling underground to attack the base of Sigma's body, but….

"_Not a good idea. The temperature being generated down there is extraordinary. You really thought this out well, Sigma_," Jenny thought to herself just before taking flight.

The biggest problem they faced was trying to outmaneuver his arms. It begged the question of how could something so huge move so fast. None of them could seem to find an opening to use any of their most effective attacks. X suddenly had an idea he thought might actually work. He slowed down just enough for Sigma to enclose him inside of his giant left hand.

"Noble fool," Sigma said as a bright nearly white yellow light was seen traveling up through Sigma's arm and into his body.

The action stopped, and Misty yelled "What did you just do?"

Sigma opened his hand reveling that X was no longer there, and then he replied with a wide grin "That's what he get's for not convincing the top brass back in our world to upgrade his ultimate armor. I designed this body to absorb many different types of energy. He decided to use that outdated giga-attack in a sad attempt to destroy my arm. His foolishness cost you all dearly as all he managed to do is feed my body with more energy. I rendered him unconscious and now I'm using him as a battery. He was your top player, and now you're all going to lose the game that much more easily. That's what being noble will get you in this life."

"So then; that's what happened to the other villains. I was right. You're using them as additional power," Killgore yelled.

Hearing this surprised everyone else.

"And I bet Sherlock Holmes would be proud of your deductive skills. The only two I could actually use is Giga-Watt and Himcules. Giga-Watt's little creation either shut itself down or died of fright when it saw what I was doing with the others. The other villains were simply disposed of because of their uselessness," Sigma explained.

As Jenny contemplated the shocking realization that most of the world's top villains had been slaughtered without her even knowing about it, Misty looked over and noticed the expression of horror on Jenny's face.

Misty then looked back up at Sigma and yelled angrily "Listen well, Sigma. Heed my words. Your heartlessness WILL be your undoing. It may be looking good for you now, but sooner or later, your evil ways will lead you to your grave."

With a psychotic grin, Sigma yelled "I will be the one to defeat the grave. It'll never claim me."

When he finished, his eyes began flashing again. Zero finally decided to transform again. A bright burst of purple light lit up the area. When it disappeared, the others could hardly believe what they were seeing. Zero's body looked drastically different. In all, his armor made him look like a dark vampire bat. His eyes were now blue. His hair returned to its normal blonde color. He had large bat wings with visible orange yellow and green circuits lining the insides of them. He even had what looked like bat wings growing out of the sides of his helmet. He also had long sharp claws on the tips of his fingers. There was also now a large red orb on his chest with black circuits lining the outside that appeared to be cracks. He had various other additions to his designed to make him like more vampire like.

"So we finally get a chance to see it. Your ultimate armor: Absolute Zero Armor," Sigma said.

"Yeah! This is it. You never had a chance to see it personally, and that's because you didn't show your face for a few years. You're actually looking at me in awe right now. Funny. I used to think this armor was pretty cool myself. With all the upgrades X acquired, he always said he wishes he never had to use them. They're all just weapons of war: supped up versions of a sword or a gun. X is the only one to ever make me regret having these powers. I will use this again, if only to defeat you. Prepare for battle, Sigma," Zero replied with a surprisingly calm tone.


	43. Chapter 43

Ms. Wakeman, now able to see through Jenny's eyes again, was more afraid for her daughters' lives than ever before. Sigma's huge body was a terrifying sight. She was especially concerned about Jenny. Even though a few of her other daughters were also fighting Sigma, Jenny was panicking enough to cause levels of stress dangerous enough to cause ordinary humans to go into shock.

As she watched the battle, she thought to herself, "She fears death more than ever. If she was a human, she would've likely fainted from this. I think this is why the concept of something being a blessing and also a curse was thought up in the first place. Two sides to every coin, right? At least she likely won't ever consider suicide again. Her being this afraid to die seems to confirm this. I've never seriously prayed before, but if you really are somewhere up there listening to this, I pray that you please bring my daughters back to me alive. I'm begging you. Please save them."

* * *

The battle was quite fierce indeed. The onlookers from the battlefield could hardly believe how much destruction was being caused in such a short amount of time. Most of the upper levels of the base had already crumbled under the weight of the madness.

* * *

Everyone quickly found out why Zero's armor was called the Absolute Zero Armor. His primary power was to freeze things with his claws. His biggest advantage was his speed. None of them had actually seen a person able to cover so much distance in what seemed like an instant. In mid-air, he was able to travel the distance of about half a football field in less than a second. Everyone else quickly realized that Zero's strategy was to provide a distraction while they attacked.

The others decided the best strategy was to slowly pick Sigma's body apart with each attack instead of trying to destroy him all at once because they didn't have time to charge for one final attack.

"_This annoying bug is making this game much more difficult. I might find a way to take Zero out of the picture_," Sigma thought to himself.

Jenny suddenly had an idea she thought just might work. She made her way around Sigma's back and concentrated intensely for all the time she had. As soon as Sigma heard her scream, he swung his arm around in her direction so fast it looked like a huge whip. He caught a glimpse of what looked like her body being shattered. As soon as the hologram projection of her disappeared, Jenny made her move. She transformed her entire body into a giant spiked ball and crashed into the side of Sigma's head at top speed after traveling the distance of about three football fields.

Afterwards, Sigma's body leaned to the side some. The others followed suit. XJ6 crashed into the same spot while also putting a deep puncture wound in him. She moved out of the way, and then Killgore unleashed a large portion of his energy into the puncture wound. Behind him came XJ7 who began punching him wildly, slowly forcing his body to lean even more. At the same time, Grace stretched her arms until they were inside the wound. She kept a constant stream of flame flowing into his wound. All the while, Zero was working on freezing the arms to prevent Sigma from swatting them away. Misty found a spot close to the wound and kept punching and kicking to aid in leaning Sigma's body. Axl transformed his guns into one large grenade launcher and repeatedly fired at Sigma's side and focused on avoiding hitting the others. XJ5 focused her antenna to fire a concentrated beam of sound waves at Sigma. Cinnamon kept punching away at his side as well. Cinnamon's and XJ7's punches were close to equal.

Sigma found himself struggling greatly to get out of the situation he was in.

Both Melody and Jenny used this time to charge a lot of energy into one powerful attack. While powering up, Melody transformed. Out of the corner of Jenny's eyes, she thought that Melody looked just as scary as she did the last time she saw her transformed state.

Just as Sigma was beginning to regain some of his composure, XJ8 finally joined the fight. She rocketed towards Sigma and crashed into his side shoulder first. Sigma let out a yell as his body leaned even more.

Just then, Zero yelled "Black Widow," as his body glowed bright red.

He then zipped around wildly at the base of both of his arms forming what looked like black spider webs. He then flew to a spot where he could see both arms easily and then fired beams of red energy at the webs from the orb on his chest. He kept firing until the red energy was gone from his body, but the moment before the red energy completely left his body, it formed the hourglass shape on a black widow's back. Once the black energy webs completely absorbed the red energy, they exploded. The others moved out of the way so they wouldn't get caught in the explosions.

One after the other, both arms fell off of Sigma's shoulders. That was when Jenny curled into a ball and dropped into Melody's hands. Melody then fired a huge laser from her hands with Jenny at the tip. At the last moment, as soon as she entered Sigma's wound, Jenny released her charged energy like a bomb. Sigma then tried to yell, but only did so for about half a second before his entire head exploded.

The explosion was so powerful, that everyone else was pushed away from it. In the battlefield, many of Sigma's followers wondered if their leader was still alive.

As the explosion cleared, XJ5 yelled "Where is Jenny?"

That was when the headless armless body returned to its upright position. The others watched in horror as the broken pieces lying around were being pulled back towards the body as if Sigma knew telekinesis.

Once Sigma's body was restored, he then yelled with a grin "If that wasn't just the stupidest strategy ever conceived. You just saw what happened to X, and then you just handed Jenny over to me so she can meet the same fate. And now, I've just become that much more powerful. But don't feel too bad, it was really her fault for impulsively entering my body to try to retrieve X. I told you before not to do anything noble, but you wouldn't listen; you idiots."

"No offense to the Wakeman family, but that was stupid. Even I didn't think she would try something that foolish," Killgore yelled.

Furious, XJ6 screamed "Damn you, Killgore. Have you no remorse."

"Whether or not I have remorse does not matter right now. I know you just lost a sister and a friend, but they just made it nearly impossible for us to win. I'm not as selfless as you. I don't want to die. You expect me to say something nice at a time like this," Killgore replied.

"I know you're all hoping that their little argument will somehow buy you enough time to formulate yet another brilliant strategy, but I'm braking this up right now," Sigma said just before he shot several small roughly human-sized metal balls from the small orb on his forehead.

The balls then formed into a rough looking version of Jenny. Each one of them had a very distraught look on their faces.

"And now you use the image of our sister against us. How low can you possibly go?" XJ8 asked.

"As low as I want. In the game of life or death, anything goes. For instance….," Sigma replied just before transforming his right arm into Jenny's usual laser cannon, but not blue like hers.

The Jenny copies then began assaulting the others while wailing as if they had just lost a loved-one. The sound was ear piercingly loud. This was obviously a mind-game, but the convincing voice of the Jenny copies was very distracting.

Misty was holding onto both of one of the Jenny copies wrists.

As she stared directly into its eyes, she thought herself "_This thing is not my friend_."

Seeing this imposter awakened and anger she hadn't felt since she witnessed the destruction of many of her people. She started screaming very loudly as her body started releasing large amounts of her purple mist. She began crushing the fake's wrists.

"Not today," Sigma said as he pointed at Misty and fired a huge laser at her.

Misty realized that she had no time to both separate herself from the fake and then move out of the way. As she saw the fake disintegrated in front of her, she knew that her life had finally ended.

A moment later, she realized that she was being rocketed towards the ground. The situation was too intense, and her vision was too blurred from the bright flash to realize what had happened. She then felt an impact.

As she climbed her way out of the snow, her vision finally cleared just enough to recognize something. Not only did she see it, but her left hand was touching it.

"Blood?" Misty asked surprised.

That's when she realized the sound she'd been hearing was the sound of someone coughing.

She felt around wile asking frantically "Where are you dammit?"

A moment later, she finally saw the person in question. She then crawled over to the blurry figure.

A few seconds later, she realized who it was, and then she said "Axl?"

A moment later, she was able to make out that there was a hole in his back. Her eyes then began to water uncontrollably.

In a trembling voice, she asked "But I thought…I didn't know…nobody ever told me you guys could bleed. I'm not worth it. Why did you try to save me?"

A moment later, Axl finally whispered "You…..may not see…value…in yourself…but I do. What was I…thinking? I should've taken…into consideration…everyone else's lives over the…life of one. My vision; I can…only see…out of one eye…and not…very…."

Misty knew that she didn't know how to check to see if he was still alive or not. Seeing his unresponsive body lying there in the snow and her not knowing what to do overwhelmed her. She hugged him tight and screamed as loudly as she could with tears pouring down her face.

* * *

The others were being beaten down pretty badly. They were honestly convinced that they weren't going to make it.

As a barely damaged Sigma stared at the small group, he said "It really is a sad sight. First the human soldiers that helped you get through that blast door disserted you before they had a chance to face me, then your numbers and your strength keeps dropping. You did manage to defeat those annoying Jenny clones I made, so at least you got that far. As I told you before, I do plan on making your deaths terrible ones, and that means painful. We mechanical beings may not be able to feel pain like a human, but we can suffer. I intend to make that happen."

"Why are you still here, Killgore? I thought you were gonna run if you felt like you were gonna die," XJ6 asked.

"I was. Then I remembered the way she looked at me earlier. I was ready to kill her, but then she still looked at me as if she wanted so badly to be my friend. She was just too afraid to ask. Why she would even want to be the friend a guy named Killgore is a mystery to me. Then I gave it some thought. Sigma would just try to hunt me down afterwards. Today or tomorrow, if I die, I die. I also don't know what to do with my life now that my rivalry with XJ9 has ended. I'm guessing…that I was hoping that maybe she would lead the way until I found that answer. Now I don't even know if she is alive or not. I can't even articulate why I feel this way, but I need to know if it's possible to save her. That's the first thing I feel I need to do," Killgore explained.

"Things really have changed," XJ5 commented.

"Things always change. In a moment, you'll feel the change I have in store for you," Sigma said as he began reaching for the group that was now mostly huddled together.

As soon as they began moving out of the way, Sigma's arm lashed forward and back like a whip snatching Melody out of the air.

As Melody struggled to free herself, Sigma said "Out of all you, Melody is the most predictable fighter. That's how I grabbed her so easily."

Many cannons began protruding from all over Sigma's entire body.

"Let's see if you can somehow rescue her before I've finished taking her apart," Sigma said as he began reaching for Melody's left foot with his other hand.

As Melody screamed for help, the others began advancing towards her. They had such a difficult time trying to reach her without being killed by the lasers. In her moment of desperation, Melody began powering up and forming a force field around her body. The more she strained, the more the force field repelled Sigma's hands. Sigma grinned at the struggle of trying to squeeze through her force field.

Without warning, a loud speaker rang as it turned on in the distance.

A man's voice was heard through the speaker saying "Sigma! You have ignored our warning for the last time. You have threatened and attacked us until you left us with no choice but to use drastic measures. Release Melody immediately and turn yourself in or we will be forced to destroy you now. This demand is non-negotiable. You have till the count of zero. Ten…nine…eight…seven…six…five…four…"

Suddenly, Sigma released Melody, which actually surprised everyone.

"I have no intention of turning myself in, but these fools aren't even giving me a challenge. I'm assuming this is the time you've decided to unveil whatever secret weapon you have. I figured you only planned on letting these guys take care of this situation if they could succeed. Now I see you've lost faith in their ability. Show me what your pitiful military was able to cook up," Sigma said.

They gave him no verbal response, but the others somehow knew that at any moment, something major was going to happen. About twenty or so seconds later, a single figure was seen running towards Sigma on the ground at over four hundred miles per hour. They were all quite surprised. None of them had ever witnessed anything able to run that fast. It stopped about half a mile in front of Sigma and looked straight up at his face.

It was an odd looking robot that stood about ten feet in height. It had a reflective surface like a mirror. It was easy to see the robot, but not its features. While running, it looked like a blur. Its surface wasn't smooth and streamlined.

A male voice was heard coming from it saying "You're a lot bigger than I expected you to be. It's time to see if all my training will pay off. Before we begin, you had your last chance to surrender. The fact that I'm standing here now means that you are to be destroyed as quickly as possible."

Sigma grinned, and then said "You being able to run so quickly isn't enough to…"

He was cut off by a sudden kicked to the face. The thought racing through Sigma's mind was how was this robot able to kick him before he even saw him leave the ground. The robot then extended his arm grabbing the side of one of the protruding laser cannons. He used his arm like a vine and swung around to the back of Sigma's head and let go. At the moment, he formed a small floating force field in the middle of the air a distance away, and then jumped off of it like a wall and crashed into the back of Sigma's head with both his fists. As Sigma's head leaned forward, the robot purposefully fell straight down, and while doing so, he began firing energy bursts at the protruding cannons with guns he pulled off of his waist.

As XJ6 began advancing towards Sigma, XJ8 stopped her and said "We all need to recharge for now. Let the new guy handle it until he needs our help."

So they all watched this fight play out. The new robot had so far managed to avoid being hit at all. They all figured that he managed to learn Sigma's moves while watching the fight from a distance. The robot was not causing any major damage. He was just slowly punching holes and making dents along the way. If Sigma did not manage to take care of him, that damage would eventually add up.

At one point, the robot decided to abruptly stop in mid-air and made some distance from Sigma.

He then said "If I were fighting any of the others, they would give me more of a challenge than you. You are so gigantic that you slowed yourself down. I have been trained in more areas than just fighting. I've also been trained in some of the most rigorous and elaborate obstacle courses you could probably ever imagine. To me, your limbs are just huge moving obstacles. The others have smaller bodies so there's really not much to try to get around. You did have an excellent strategy though. You developed this strategy based on your knowledge of the enemies you've known for a while. You assumed that I was trained using the same systems the others trained under. That was your mistake. It really is over for you. As soon as the others regain sufficient power, we will destroy the rest of your body and call it a day. To me, you're just an interruption to me finishing my game of chess. In short, you're just another obstacle."

A frustrated Sigma then replied "You foolish little man. Did you happen to forget that I have both X and Jenny inside of me? You may know pretty much all of Jenny's attacks, but you only know a few of X's. The longer I hold onto him, the more of his attacks I learn how to emulate. Here's one obstacle you can't get around so easily."

"I don't plan on letting you have the time you need," The robot declared.

Suddenly, the robot's entire body released an intense blinding flash of light. Everyone else guessed this was the real reason for the mirror coating. The next thing Sigma knew was a low rumbling noise he heard coming from somewhere nearby, and then the light disappeared. When he realized what happened, his anxiety level went through the roof. Somehow, the robot managed to shatter half of the upper portion of Sigma's left arm without his sensors even detecting it.

Without delay, Sigma then yelled "Squeeze Bomb!"

He instantly shot a tiny baseball sized black ball out of the orb on his forehead about twenty feet away from the robot.

As soon as he felt the distortion building, the robot yelled "A fucking gravity well? Are you insane or something? You mean to tell me X has such a dangerous attack at his disposal?"

By this time, the gravity well had reached the size of a pick-up truck and the robot was having a difficult time keeping himself away from it.

"Yes, X does know this attack. He took it from a reploid named Gravity Antonion. There also another reploid named Gravity Beetle that also knows how to make gravity wells. We're not stupid. We would never let it go on for too long. I don't plan on letting it become full-fledged black hole. As soon as the life has been squeezed out of you, I will cancel the well," Sigma explained.

"We gotta help him somehow," XJ7 yelled.

"If you guys get close, you'll die along with me. It's funny how you didn't even know what you are really even up against, Sigma. I'm like you in the way of being able to switch between bodies without much worry of damaging my core being. This body wasn't designed to do much damage for a reason. This body is disposable. You're dead," The robot said just before his palm opened revealing a trigger.

"You don't have enough power in your body to destroy me if you self-destruct," Sigma said confidently.

"Actually, there's a powerful laser cannon pointing directly at the tracking device in this body. It's almost finished powering up," The robot replied as his thumb began lowering to press the trigger.

They all suddenly heard a voice from inside Sigma's body suddenly scream "NOT JUST YET!"

A huge hole burst open in Sigma's back revealing X carrying both Jenny and the head of the unconscious Giga-Watt. Jenny was barely conscious.

Sigma then screamed "No! My Power!"

First, X immediately canceled the gravity well Sigma formed, and then he yelled "If this body really is disposable as you say, then have the beam aim at Sigma's abdomen. Cut him in half."

The robot grinned, waved at Sigma, and then dropped straight down. Sigma screamed and made an effort to knock him out of the way, but when the beam finally came, it not only cut Sigma in half, but also disintegrated half of the arm he tried to defend himself with.

X then yelled "Everyone. Keep him from putting himself back together."

They followed his order and crashed into one side of his body. They then used all the strength they could muster to push Sigma's body away from the base. When they finally managed to knock Sigma to the ground, they all turned in reaction to the sound of a small rocket engine.

Jenny, who was still struggling to wake herself up asked "What is Vile doing here?

Vile was floating in the middle of the air using a rocket pack attached to his back.

He then looked at Sigma and said "I'll go ahead and tell you why this turned out this way, Sigma. I'm the one that set you up."

"You traitor," Sigma yelled angrily.

"That's the worst thing you could say to me. You were the one who was planning to betray us as soon as our usefulness ran out. I've known for years you planned to wipe our memories and turn us into mindless dolls as soon as you took over the world. And you know what else, I'm glad you don't have another body to return to. I destroyed your regular body while you were in this one. Being transferred here to this dimension severed your connection to all the other bodies you could have used as a getaway car. I also know you were planning on escaping to one of the orbiting satellites in this world should you fail. I informed the military of that plan, and they already disabled every satellite within the range necessary for you to make the trip. You'll try, and you'll fade into nothingness. Good bye Sigma."

Sigma then screamed "This can't be the end. I must destroy you all now."

Before he had the chance to power up, the others immediately attacked him in a furious rage. The light from the explosions could be seen from many miles away. When the explosions finally cleared, what looked like a mostly purple hologram version of Sigma's head was left floating in the middle of the air.

"Do you have any idea how advanced that technology must be? He's not even connected to a physical body," Melody said.

Sigma's expression had fear written all over it.

He then screamed "I can't find anything to transfer to. There's nothing. My perfect new world. I'll never get to see it. I can't believe….."

He finally faded out of sight. All of the present XJs huddled together and hugged each other.

Vile spoke up saying "I know what you're thinking X and Zero. Maybe Sigma has some other trick up his sleeve. Don't worry about it. He's finally gone. You finally won. And no, I don't plan on taking Sigma's place. This whole reploid superiority and utopia business is making me sick to my stomach. It's an issue that's been drawn out for too long. And by the way, before you even think about turning me in for past crimes, ask the leaders of both worlds if you want; my record has been wiped clean for risking my life to set Sigma up for defeat."

Angrily, Zero said "They would pardon you, wouldn't they?"

Jenny turned towards Vile and performed an uppercut with her right arm clasping her fingers together into a fist at the last second making a loud impact sound followed by a small amount of steam rising from between her fingers. She was about fifty feet away from Vile, so an impact was not possible. She did this purely to show her anger.

She then said "I know that this is one of those times that I need to just let it go, but I won't forget how you used your ride armor to smash those people to death."

"I don't take pleasure in killing people that way. I was a soldier following orders. You knew that. That little act I put on when I called you a bitch in your face was purely Sigma telling me to make you angry. He assumed you would operate less efficiently the more we did hateful things to you. If this was the old you, it probably would've worked. Sigma was desperate and he started using ridiculous tactics: anything he could think of to squeeze out a win," Vile replied.

"You're usually trying to prove that you're the best and that type of loud obnoxious name calling is usually your style. That doesn't sound like a likely story…besides the part about Sigma being desperate," X pointed out.

"It actually was my style. As soon as I realized we were in another dimension, the thoughts that went racing through my mind as a result really messed with me. I really haven't been the same since. It's funny the kinds of thoughts that you dwell on when the world around you suddenly becomes so much bigger. That's my story. Now how about you, X? How did you manage to break free of Sigma and also discover that Giga-Watt and Jenny were still alive?" Vile asked.

"Oh, well, he kept trying so hard to hack my data that Dr. Light's failsafe mechanism kicked in and woke me up. I then tried to hack into him, and I found out Giga-Watt and Jenny were alive, so then I acted accordingly," X replied.

"X, we really need to go find Axl. Sigma hit him pretty hard when he decided to protect Misty," Zero explained.

A speaker from inside Jenny sounded with Ms. Wakeman's voice saying "There's no need for that. XJ4 helped carry him to a safe place and he is being operated on as we speak. Misty was not seriously injured, so there's no problem. Axl on the other hand, unfortunately, might be in a coma. We are still trying to determine that. Even so, that's the worst of his problems. His repairs are going well. It's a good thing that even if he is in a coma, you're all designed not to be in one for long. As far as Sigma is concerned, I congratulate you all. You all did a fine job. Vile and Killgore, I may not approve of your past deeds, but I am grateful to you both for helping save my daughters' lives. I thank you all for this. Just you wait, there's gonna be a big parade to celebrate your victory."


	44. Chapter 44

And there was a big parade to celebrate their victory. The people were so much more grateful than the heroes thought they would be. It was certainly a time to remember.

* * *

It took quite a while to clean up the mess made by Sigma and his followers. The other Mavericks were all imprisoned in an underground facility built like a fortress. There was no sign of either Bamboo Pandemonium or Vile after the day Sigma was defeated and there hasn't been any sign since. The President of the country that X and Zero came from finally decided to have a talk with the world leaders in Jenny's world. He mainly decided to do this because the citizens wanted to know how they managed to defeat Sigma so quickly when it took them many years of trying with no success. The main thing the people were happiest about was the fact that a relatively small amount of damage was actually caused by Sigma's forces before he was taken down.

This event was so big that Jenny finally began to earn a lot more respect that she ever had before and also from the peers in her school. She was finally getting a taste of what she was working for.

As for all of the Maverick Hunters, they needed to return home, at least for a little while. They needed to clear up some business. Most of the actual Maverick threat had been taken care of, so some called into question the need for their organization. Commander Signas made it quite clear to the public that the Maverick threat will never completely go away. Someone somewhere will always make the decision to become Maverick from time to time. So, they decided to agree with him.

Being under a mutual threat long enough, the people managed to convince themselves that they were all pretty much one in the same people. It was voted that a permanent bridge between the worlds be made as long as it didn't cause a problem too major to deal with. Everyone knew it was an extremely risky gamble, but most felt that they could also benefit from each other greatly.

X was finally happier than he had been in a very long time. Knowing that so many people had decided to give working together a chance made him feel all his years of work was finally paying off.

Zero on the other hand, though he felt the way X did, he had a strong fighting spirit, so he wasn't used to the idea of not having to fight so much. He promised Vexus that he would soon return to discuss their personal matters.

Vexus was fine with this. She knew all too well how complicated it would be for them to spend any time together until things die down. Knowing how much Vexus was dedicated to risking her life for everyone else's sake made them feel like giving her a chance.

Melody and Brad decided to try holding an actual relationship. Only time would tell how well it would work out, as with any relationship.

Misty decided to wait at the facility where Axl was being held until he wakes up. She felt like she owed him that much for his sacrifice.

Grace and Angel slowly started to develop a friendship with all of the XJs. Jenny did still feel some level of animosity towards her though. Grace's relationship with Jason was a complicated one. Both have major personality issues to sort out, but they both felt that they were where they need to be.

The mysterious robot that helped them had not yet decided to reveal himself to either the public, or to the heroes. He did plan to meet with them sometime soon though.

Ms. Wakeman didn't know if there was a God or not, but she decided to thank him anyway. She thought that it wouldn't make much sense to pray to him and then not thank him afterwards. She felt like that would be the equivalent of trusting an anonymous person's advice and then not thanking them for it after the advice actually helped. She did finally feel as though she could sleep peacefully for a while.

* * *

Jenny decided that the short time she spent floating in the silence of outer space, when she waited for Captain Black Phoenix's arrival, was so peaceful that she began a habit of spending more time up there. She would float in one spot for hours at a time meditating and enjoying the absence of constant noise.

As she floating above an area in China, she thought to herself "Sometimes I wish I could sleep here for an eternity, and when I wake up, I can just return to life as usual, with my friends and family not knowing that I was gone for long. But that's not the only reason I'm up here…just to rest. I'm listening…to the radio signals…to the internet…to the sounds from below that only some of my sensors can hear. I want to understand this world; all its mysteries, its histories, life's meaning. I want know if there is some intended purpose, or if everything that has happened is simply a random series of events. More than ever, I want to know if there is an existence after death, or will we all simply return to the dust from whence we came. But for now, I just want to think happy thoughts. I just want to think about the good times."

The End.


End file.
